''Pre-Human Ideas'' is a

compilation album A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several Performing arts#Performers, performers. If by one artist, then generally the tr ...

released by

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 ...

under the name

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. ...

, on November 12, 2013. The album consists of computerised versions of songs from his 2012 releases ''

Clear Moon ''Clear Moon'' is the fifth studio album by Mount Eerie, a solo project by American musician Phil Elverum. It was released May 22, 2012 on Elverum's own label P.W. Elverum & Sun. The album was written and produced entirely by Elverum, who recorde ...

'' and '' Ocean Roar'', plus 2 organ excerpts from the songs "Pale Lights" and "The Place Lives" from ''Clear Moon'' and ''Ocean Roar'' respectively. The album is a derivation from Elverum's typical sound with his vocals layered in

autotune Auto-Tune (or autotune) is an audio processor introduced in 1996 by American company Antares Audio Technologies. Auto-Tune uses a proprietary device to measure and alter pitch in vocal and instrumental music recording and performances. Auto-Tu ...

and pitched higher in some instances to resemble a female voice.

Recording

Recording took place over the time span of 3 years in the recording studio Unknown in Anacortes, Washington.

Reception

The album received generally positive reviews upon release.

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 72 based on 10 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Heather Phares of

AllMusic 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 ...

wrote that the album was "More than just musical footnotes, these reworkings add extra depth to Mount Eerie's already complex body of work". Alex Young of

Consequence of Sound ''Consequence'' (previously ''Consequence of Sound'') is an independently owned New York-based online magazine featuring news, editorials, and reviews of music, movies, and television. In addition, the website also features the Festival Outlook ...

said of the album "Overall, it’s barely more than a set of curios, which may have been better off released as a free download". Eric Hill of

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

described the album as "sweet and creepy" and thinking that the experimentation, on the whole, was a success. Robert Ham of Paste wrote that the album "certainly has a welcome place in his vast and varied discography".

Legacy

Eric Hill of ''

'' Included the album in a guide to Elverum's music, however told readers to avoid it.

Track listing

Personnel

– songwriting, vocals Production *Timothy Stollenwerk – digital mastering *John Golden – vinyl mastering

References

{{Authority control 2013 albums Mount Eerie albums