Mount Eerie
Mount Eerie is the musical project of American songwriter and producer Phil Elverum. Elverum (also of The Microphones) is the principal member of the band, but has collaborated with many other musicians on his records and in live performances. ...
, with Canadian musicians
Julie Doiron
Julie Doiron (born June 28, 1972) is a Canadian singer-songwriter of Acadian heritage. She has been the bass guitarist and co-vocalist for the Canadian indie rock band Eric's Trip since its formation in 1990. She has released ten solo albums, beg ...
and
Frederick Squire
Frederick Squire is a Canadian rock singer, songwriter and guitarist. Originally from Ajax, Ontario, he is based in Sudbury following a number of years living in Sackville, New Brunswick. less than a month before Elverum's next album under the Mount Eerie name, ''
Dawn
Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc has reached 18° below the observer's horizo ...
'', was released, which featured songs from this album. A follow-up album, '' Lost Wisdom pt. 2'', was released in 2019, without Frederick Squire.
Background and recording
Elverum considers Doiron his favorite singer, and says recording with her was a "dream come true" for him. She was a member of
Eric's Trip
Eric's Trip is a Canadian indie rock band from Moncton, New Brunswick. Eric's Trip achieved prominence as the first Canadian band to be signed to Seattle's flagship grunge label Sub Pop in the early 1990s. The band had a minor hit in alternative ...
, an
indie
Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Gaming
*Independent video game development, video games created without financial backing from large companies
*Indie game, any game (board ...
noise pop
Noise pop is a subgenre of alternative and indie rock that developed in the mid-1980s in the United Kingdom and United States. It is defined by its mixture of dissonant noise or feedback with the songcraft more often found in pop music. Shoega ...
band from the early 1990s, and has since recorded numerous solo albums. Elverum considers Eric's Trip his favorite band of all time, and says the band is "the reason why I got into playing music". Frederick Squire is a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
rock singer, songwriter and guitarist. Formerly a member of
Shotgun & Jaybird
Shotgun & Jaybird were a Canadian indie rock band formed in 2003 in Dawson City and based in Sackville, New Brunswick.
History
Shotgun & Jaybird formed in mid-2003 when Frederick Squire, formerly of The Janitors, travelled to the Yukon and was l ...
, he would perform under the stage name Dick Morello."Julie Doiron Has the Midas Touch" ''
chartattack.com
''Chart Attack'' was a Canadian online music publication. Formerly a monthly print magazine called ''Chart'', it was published from 1991 to 2009. While the web version appears to be available online, the domain is now used as a popular media outle ...
'', March 23, 2009.
The recording of the album was somewhat spontaneous. Doiron and Squire had a few days between a recent tour and an upcoming recording session in
Olympia, Washington
Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest city of Thurston County. It is southwest of the state's most populous city, Seattle, and is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region.
European ...
, and made a surprise visit to
Phil Elverum
Philip Whitman Elverum (; born May 23, 1978) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and visual artist, best known for his musical projects The Microphones and Mount Eerie. Based in Anacortes, Washington, in the mid-2000s he began ...
in Anacortes. Initially they were just recording for fun without the pretense of recording an album. Elverum eventually did ask the two to record an album, the three decided to do so and quickly recorded the album.
Music
The title track was inspired by Elverum's time spent:
The song was written while driving at night. A different version of the song "With My Hands Out" appears on Mount Eerie's 2004 release '' Seven New Songs'', and other tracks later appeared on ''
Dawn
Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc has reached 18° below the observer's horizo ...
'', released on 1 November 2008. Though the versions found on ''Dawn'' are actually the original versions of those songs written in 2002 and recorded in 2008. The track "Voice in Headphones" on this album reprises the chorus from
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, she has de ...
's song "
Undo
Undo is an interaction technique which is implemented in many computer programs. It erases the last change done to the document, reverting it to an older state. In some more advanced programs, such as graphic processing, undo will negate the las ...
", over a different verse. Elverum had previously covered Björk's "
All Is Full of Love
"All Is Full of Love" is a song by Icelandic musician Björk from her third studio album, ''Homogenic'' (1997). The lyrics were inspired by love in spring and Ragnarök of Norse mythology. Björk's original version is a trip hop ballad with soul ...
" on the 2001
Microphones
A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and public ...
album ''
Blood
Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the c ...
''.
Release
Due to the impromptu nature of the recording session Elverum didn't intend to release the album. The album was however released on October 7 on LP and CD, the vinyl version included a double-sided jumbo poster. The album was re-released in 2019 in a double CD set alongside companion album ''Lost Wisdom pt. 2''.
Reception
Upon release, the album received critical acclaim. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from
music critic
''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...
s, the album has received an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...
score of 82, indicating "universal acclaim", based on 8 reviews.
Heather Phares of AllMusic wrote that despite the fast time to create the album "its simplicity and immediacy sound intimate instead of tossed off" she also complimented the chemistry between Elverum and Dorion writing that "He and Doiron sound completely natural yet haunting trading verses".
Allmusic review
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
/ref>
Legacy
Eric Hill of Exclaim! Included the album in a ranking of Elverum's "essential" albums.
Track listing
LOST WISDOM live at Gunjyo, March 12th, 2010
On July 4, 2012 Tokyo based label 7e.p. released a live album of ''Lost Wisdom'' in its entirety entitled ''LOST WISDOM live at Gunjyo, March 12th, 2010.'' The album was recorded at Gunjyo, Matsumoto by Koji Saito. Mastering was done by Masaki Tada. The album was released as a bonus disc for ''" Clear Moon / Ocean Roar"''.