#night palace

[dustedmagazine]

Mount Eerie — Night Palace (P.W. Elverum & Sun)

It’s been a big year for big albums. The mother of them all has to be Cindy Lee’s 32-track, 123-minute opus, Diamond Jubilee. But there’s also been Broadcast’s 36-song, 66-minute demos collection, Spell Blanket. Now we have Mount Eerie’s 26-track, 81-minute Night Palace, which unites the many facets of Phil Elverum’s musical preoccupations into a raw, artful, sprawling double album. Unwieldy as it is, there are so many wonderful moments across the track list that it pays dividends to invest the time.

As ever, Elverum situates himself within the living, breathing natural world of his home state of Washington, in the chilly Pacific Northwest. (Indeed, five of the song titles start with the first-person: “I Walk,” “I Heard Whales (I Think),” “I Saw Another Bird,” “I Spoke With A Fish,” and “I Need New Eyes.”) Blast beats evoke thunderous storms; cacophonous cymbals evoke the crashing of waves against the shore; white noise and amp hiss evoke the wind whistling through the trees. There are countless references to animals, landscapes, and weather events, and the sounds themselves have been lovingly laid to tape in Elverum’s home studio.

Night Palace most closely resembles Clear Moon and Ocean Roar, the wonderful pair of Mount Eerie albums he released back in 2012. Here, though, the calm and the chaotic are intermingled. At one end of the scale is the 53-second screaming death-metal interlude, “Swallowed Alive,” which features a guest appearance from Elverum’s daughter. At the other end of the scale is the ponderous 12-minute spoken-word piece, “Demolition.” There are a couple of songs in the middle of the track list, “Non-Metaphorical Decolonization” and “Co-Owner of Trees,” that almost sound like Stereolab, with their motorik drums and droning organs. Most of all, though, Elverum sounds inimitably himself, even calling back to past Microphones releases (“the Gleam pt. 3”).

While recent releases A Crow Looked at Me and Now Only were painfully direct in their confrontation of grief, Night Palace feels more abstract, as if Elverum is now operating from a place beyond the immediacy of personal trauma. There’s a sense of unmoored drifting in these songs, as if the music is constantly unfolding, never quite settling into place. For this reason, it’s a challenge to apprehend, but a challenge worth accepting.  

Tim Clarke

[olivesjaw]

Mist kissed face Vast grass shuffling Treeless place Expanse encircling

[etudiantfantome]

[infiniterichesinalittleroom]

That poem was on the cover of my album A Crow Looked at Me, for very personal reasons. My wife who died, Geneviève, had a postcard with that poem letter-pressed on it tacked to the wall in her studio. I don’t even know where she got it. She was pen-pals with Joanne, she wrote to her… They were even working on a long-form zine together. It was going to be called Old People (Joanne hated the name). Geneviève had the idea of publishing an interview zine, focusing on older working artists that were still engaged in craft. We drove down to Bolinas and saw Joanne the last few years of her life. Anyway, I was cleaning out Geneviève’s studio after she died, some months after, and that poem was on the wall. It struck me as being relevant to what was happening. Life and death, posterity, present and the past. I took a picture and used it as the album cover. Years later, I realized it: Oh, weird, that album has this other title on the cover. It has this title, Night Palace on it, as a second title. Maybe I need to make an album called Night Palace to use up that seed that has been planted. It’s not even about that poem resonating beyond that one record, it’s those words, “Night Palace,” they’re so resonant and powerful. There’s a lot to be explored there. That’s the zone I’ve been in the last few years. I’m not exactly sure what this is, this “Night Palace” thing—or this like “Mount Eerie” thing. These different, resonant words that have a feeling; it’s distinct to me but isn’t easily articulated. That’s my art process, trying to articulate this thing that feels big and important to me. But you asked how I got into Joanne Kyger! I’m into her scene of poets. Late Beats, the Californian, back-to-the-land poets: Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Lew Welch. The countercultural movement of the 60’s and 70’s, and the Pacific Northwest contingent. I remember being a kid and seeing these older poets around and knowing this cool thing was happening. It does feel personal to me. In a way, it’s part of my lineage.

Phil Elverum

[o-reviews-media]

Night Palace - Mount Eerie

review!!!

Phil's done it again!!

I couldn't wait for this album to come out - as every project elverum has released I've adored - and this one was no fucking exception. I think that this album definitely really shines on the second half of the album, but I wouldn't want the first half cut just to get to there. it all has its place and it works so so beautifully. Phil is just such a beautiful writer and musician; the stuff he is saying on this record is just... oh man. what have we done to this beautiful world we live in... --- some favorite lines I can recall: On I Spoke With a Fish: I told a fish: "What you see as a palace is running water" The fish said: "No. What you see as those mountains is flowing matter" I said: "OK" --- On November Rain: They keep their outside light on though I guess to let everyone else know "Keep away, this patch of night sky I also claim as mine"

But don't they realize All our stolen wealth is built on screaming bones?

In their lights that dot the hillside I see blinking eyes --- like the entirety of Demolition; but this is a strong one: "I moved a little bit away from the town of Anacortes where circling military jets roar their reminder "There's wars. This peace you breathe is flimsy. We rule." I bite the inside of my cheek and sidestep mere despair at the gnashing human world And go downstairs in the dark" --- Favorite Tracks: Swallowed Alive, I Spoke With a Fish, Non-Metaphorical Decolonization, November Rain, Demolition

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

rym

[yr-bed]

[butjesuswhatamess]

[lesbiannieism]

good afternoon i made a thing

[indigo-jaws]

but for now I pass across the land like everyone, a piece of wind, a little confluence only the occurrence of a person

[mellxncollie]

Dead Boy Detectives characters + live, laugh, love variants

+ bonus:

[olivesjaw]

This America, the old idea, I want it to die Non-metaphorical decolonization Beneath the one sky

[illustratus]

[infiniterichesinalittleroom]

I wanted to have the book come out first without mentioning the album, to let people experience it in that mode, with the phantom music of how the songs might sound in their own minds as they read. Then later, when the album comes out, they find they had imagined it totally different. The clash of preconception and reality is inherently interesting. I’ve had that experience, reading other people’s lyrics or reading a poem and then hearing a recording of the poet reading or singing it. It’s always different than I imagined it. I love that feeling. Or cases where you read the lyrics and then listen to the album, and you see what’s written is different than what is sung… Sometimes it’s an error, or maybe they changed something in the studio, or whatever. I love that triangulation of a third meaning, where those two converge. It opens the whole thing up in an interesting way.

Phil Elverum