THE PRESS RELEASE: “The Microphones — the hibernating moniker of Phil Elverum — returns with his first new album for The Microphones since 2003’s Mount Eerie. The album is made entirely of one 44-minute song. “I used to call my recordings a different name. A small clump of albums from 1997-2002 were called The Microphones, including some popular ones … In the summer of 2019 I played a little local concert under the old name for no big reason. The little flurry of weird attention around this announcement got me thinking about what it even means to step back into an old mode. Self commemoration would be embarrassing. I don’t want to go backwards ever. There is nothing to reunite. So I nudged into the future with these ideas and came up with this large song. It took almost a year to write and record, working constantly at home, digging through the archives, playing the same two chords forever on the same $5 first guitar. In it I have tried to get at the heart of what defined that time in my life, my late teens and early 20s, but even more importantly, I tried to break the spell of nostalgia and make something perennial and enduring. All past selves existing at once in this inferno present moment. The song doesn’t seem to end. That’s the point.”
MY TWO CENTS: Due to some really shitty circumstances that were totally beyond my control — and trust me, you truly don’t want to know — I had neither the time nor the brainpower to review albums this week. So consider this a recommendation, or a referral, or a heads-up, or whatever. That’s the best I can do right now. Regular programming will resume next week (assuming nothing even shittier happens). Thanks for your patience.
https://youtu.be/A7BkabF31ak
