Mount Eerie, who I wasn't aware of until a couple of days ago, have a new record out called A Crow Looked At Me, released last Friday. In the couple of days since then it's already racked up sufficient support to shift up to # 12 on albums of the year on The Best Ever Albums website which is a good way of measuring these kind of things and their currency.
The band are essentially the solo project of former Microphones band member Phil Elverum. This record is a particular, one-off mission. An autobiographical charting of dreadful personal events in Elverum's recent life, focused on the death of his wife Genevieve Castree of pancreatic cancer shortly after the birth of their daughter.
The songs on A Crow Looked At Me chart Elverum's mourning process, the random thoughts, emotions and sensations that cross his mind as he tries to cope with his loss but also hold onto the memories of his loved, departed one. It's a strangely consoling album, very much documenting the ticking of time. About death, of course, but also very much about life and the struggles we're all obliged to go through as we transition through it. It's not a record of songs constructed with conventional verses or choruses and that's exactly as it should be. Elverum's off-key but warm vocal delivery give things a strange, poignant potency. Here's one that seems sure to spawn a small, tender legend!
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