It Was Hot, We Stayed In The Water

''It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water'', sometimes shortened to ''It Was Hot'', is the second studio album by American indie folk and indie rock band the Microphones. It was released by K Records on September 26, 2000. After Phil Elverum—the frontman, principal songwriter, and producer of the Microphones's albums—had gained a small following with 1999's '' Don't Wake Me Up'', he recorded ''It Was Hot'' in Dub Narcotic Studio in Olympia, Washington, between September 24, 1999, and March 6, 2000. The album was recorded on analogue tape; Elverum embraced the medium's technical imperfections. The album was described as indie rock, lo-fi, and indie pop and was inspired by Elverum's visits to the ocean. As a whole, the album centers on the theme of water, while its lyricism is heavily themed on nature. The 11-minute track "The Glow" acts as the album's climax and introduces the concept of the "glow", which was explored in more depth on 2001's '' The Glow Pt. 2''.

''It Was Hot'' received positive reviews from ''Pitchfork'', AllMusic, and ''NME''. ''Pitchfork'' listed the album at number seven in their "Top 20 Albums of 2000". The album received more reviews following its 2013 reissue, including positive reviews from ''PopMatters'', ''Consequence of Sound'', and ''Treblezine''. The album is frequently compared to, and commonly said to be overshadowed by, ''The Glow Pt. 2''.

Background and recording

Phil Elverum—the frontman of the Microphones—released ''Don't Wake Me Up'' in 1999. The album was recorded using low-fidelity studio equipment, setting "a new precedent" for K Records, since Elverum's production was perceived as high-quality despite technical limitations. As a result of ''Don't Wake Me Up'', Elverum gained a small following, and K Records gained a greater trust in Elverum's musical abilities. Prior to ''It Was Hot'' release, Elverum released two seven-inch singles, "Moon Moon" and "Feedback (Life, Love, Loop)" as well as the extended play ''Window:''.

The album was recorded at Dub Narcotic Studio in Olympia, Washington, between September 24, 1999, and March 6, 2000. Elverum realized that the tracks he was recording were appropriate for an album, rather than individual singles or compilation tracks, when about half of the tracks were finished. The album was recorded on analogue tape, which caused difficulty in re-recording takes, leading Elverum to avoid pursuing perfection. He described this self-imposed limitation as the "technological reason for pursuing charismatic sloppiness". The album makes little use of reverb effects. Elverum did not write all of the album's parts; as he explained, "there was definitely a sense of collaboration. ..I had ideas, but then I was also open to other people's ideas". For example, while the credits did not separate individual contributions, Khaela Maricich wrote the track "(Something)". Elverum's lyrics were inspired by the poetic nature and mysteriousness of Will Oldham's lyrics.

Music and themes

''It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water'' is an indie rock, lo-fi, and indie pop album.

The album's lyricism is themed heavily on nature, influenced by Elverum's home town being in the Pacific Northwest. Elverum explained, "when I was 21, ..using these big, huge natural world metaphors to try and tell my own stories, I think I couldn't see outside of it. ..It was like my only vocabulary." The album was the first in a trilogy of albums themed on nature: ''It Was Hot'' explored the theme of water; '' The Glow, Pt. 2'' represented fire and air, and ''Mount Eerie'' represented rock. During recording, Elverum frequently visited the ocean in and around Westport, Washington, contributing to the album's theme of the ocean, lakes, and swimming. The album introduced the concept of the "glow" on the 11-minute track "The Glow"; the concept was explored further in ''The Glow, Pt. 2''. Elverum described the "glow" as a "glowing window that you see as you are freezing to death in the snow, or the light you go into supposedly when you die".

The opening track, "The Pull", begins with an acoustic guitar that rhythmically pans between the left and right speakers. The acoustic guitar later gives way to a dynamic shift: a burst of noisy guitars and reverbed snare drums, described by Matt LeMay of ''Pitchfork'' as a "sonic blast". LeMay also wrote, "despite the dissonance and the atypical song structure, the track never breaks down into complete anarchy". According to Adam Nelson of ''The Line of Best Fit'', the lyrics of the track are about being free from a physical form; Nelson wrote that the track "makes death into an absolving liberation". The brief "Ice" begins with a similar blast of noise and percussion before winding down to an acoustic section. The pop track "Sand" is a cover of the 1993 Eric's Trip song of the same name. The cover, described by LeMay as "otherworldly", uses building layers of vocal harmonies and instrumentation. "Sand" ends abruptly, with the sound of a tape reel running out.

The 11-minute "The Glow", which acts as the album's climax, is made of separate segments, disjointedly connected. "The Glow" varies in sound fidelity, and uses elements of noise and drones. The track ends softer, with organs and emotional vocals from Elverum. Neil Kelly of ''PopMatters'' described the track as having an "epic genre-bending strut". "Karl Blau", in the style of 1950s pop, was partly inspired by a dream Elverum had about one of his musical collaborators, Karl Blau. Drum solos solely comprise the three-minute track "Drums", described by Sputnikmusic's joshuatree as a "cacophony". "The Gleam" is a pop song filled with noisy audio feedback; Elverum's vocals are barely audible amid the noise. "The Gleam" uses drones similar to "The Glow". "Between Your Ear and the Other Ear" uses elements of freak folk and audio feedback. The album's closer, "Organs", uses a swell of multitracked distorted guitars and keyboards, described by LeMay as "ominous".

Critical reception

Contemporaneous

In Heather Phares of AllMusic's undated review, they said the band "presents delicate, almost folky melodies wrapped up in and surrounded by waves of droning, distorted guitars and organs". Phares compared tracks from the album to those of other artists, but affirmed that the band's similarities "feel like tributes", not plagiarism. In Matt LeMay of ''Pitchfork'' review at the time of the album's release, it was rated 9.2 out of 10. LeMay praised the album's originality and how it broke rock music's conventions, providing an "element of surprise" he found missing in rock. ''Pitchfork'' later listed the album at number seven in their year-end "Top 20 Albums of 2000".

Retrospective

Sputnikmusic's joshuatree reviewed the album in 2008, praised the "unpredictable nature of the album", and called it Phil Elverum's second-best album, after ''The Glow pt. 2''. Multiple publications released reviews of the album following its 2013 reissue. Neil Kelly of ''PopMatters'' wrote "in hindsight, it really is a miracle that music with these kinds of dynamics would see the daylight". Kelly praised the album for its sonic diversity, and for the production of "The Glow"; he called the album a "feast of inspiration to revisit time and time again." ''Spectrum Culture'' Joe Clinkenbeard described the album as similar to Elverum's other work in that it "thrives on chaos, quiet and in juxtaposing the two". Steven Arroyo of ''Consequence of Sound'' wrote, "The Microphones sound is inseparable from nature and the outdoors ..and so too is ''It Was Hot'' from the magical glowing buzz of a summer night swim, about which Elverum repeatedly sings." Paul Pearson of ''Treblezine'' noted the album's recording imperfections and its intimacy. Pearson wrote, "he albumis a study in subjection and liberation, crossing through warmed tides to ice and back again." According to Daniel Mescher of Colorado Public Radio, the album is "widely regarded as nindie pop classic". Patrick Lyons of ''Stereogum'' reviewed the album in 2020, comparing "The Pull"'s guitar opening to the opening of the then-newly released '' Microphones in 2020''. According to Lyons, the album solidified the sound of '' Don't Wake Me Up'' without giving up its "roughshod charm". Martin Douglas of KEXP reviewed the album in 2022, noting Elverum's boyish voice, the album's intimacy, and the inspiration the album had on "any weirdo singer/songwriter crafting dense musical epics in their basement since the turn of the century".

''It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water'' is commonly described as overshadowed by the more popular '' The Glow Pt. 2''. Douglas of KEXP wrote, "Not many artists can say they wrote their masterpiece 'It Was Hot''and then a year later, wrote another masterpiece 'The Glow, Pt. 2''. ''Spectrum Culture'' Joe Clinkenbeard called ''The Glow Pt. 2'' the album's "better known sibling" and said ''It Was Hot'' "was given little chance to sit with listeners". Sputnikmusic's joshuatree described ''The Glow Pt. 2'' as Elverum's "peak", but still called ''It Was Hot'' its "just-as-pretty twin" with "too little attention directed towards" it. According to Patrick Lyons of ''Steregum'', ''It Was Hot'' "lacks the vast scope and deep emotional core of its follow-up" but it "unfairly lived in the shadow" of ''The Glow Pt. 2''. Elverum said, "I mostly don't pay that much attention to how the stuff I've made is ranked in comparison to itself".

Track listing

All tracks written and performed by the Microphones.

Personnel

Adapted from the album's liner notes.
* Phil Elverum
* Khaela Maricich
* Mirah
* Jenn Kliese
* Anna Oxygen
* Karl Blau
* Jason Wall
* Calvin Johnson

Release history

Notes

References

{{Authority control

2000 albums
The Microphones albums
K Records albums