#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]

[yr-bed]

[butjesuswhatamess]

[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

[lesbiannieism]

good afternoon i made a thing

[mellxncollie]

Dead Boy Detectives characters + live, laugh, love variants

+ bonus:

[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

[olivesjaw]

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

[illustratus]

[justamultifandomartist]

[hannaloony]

Types of Magic