MICROPHONES IN 2020 is the 5th studio album released under the Microphones name, released in 2020. but is it good?
The Microphones, or Mount Erie, or just Phil Elverum, is a name you pretty much can't escape in the indie music sphere. Having released most prominently 2001's The Glow pt. 2, a record I'd describe as "In the aeroplane over the sea's evil half brother", Phil's influence is still felt in indie today. So, 17 years after the last Microphones record, where does that leave us?
Well, It's safe to say that Microphones in 2020 is not a conventional album. There is one song, and it is 44 minutes and 44 seconds long, and very little happens for the first 7 minutes- it's just acoustic guitar. Mostly for this reason I think I'd recommend consuming the record with it's youtube short film counterpart (linked above), which s0rt of prevents the experience from dragging.
But once you get into the album itself, there are so many huge themes present. As the photo montage in the video suggests, a big theme is memories- Phil reflects at multiple points on being 17, or 20, or 23, he compares his life to "some dreams I don't trust". He reflects on an early memory, from when he was 12 or 13, of going to the beach with his family in the winter; and remarks how everything "vibrates with significance" in youth. These moments give the album this feel of going thru torn pages of someone's diary- kind of like the album cover. There's a line that stuck out to me- "I was already who I am", which really drove home this idea of looking back on how you've changed and also not.
I think probably the most prominent theme of the record is permanence- or the lack thereof. Near the staff, Phil proposes this metaphor of a waterfall with no top or bottom, which kind of sums up the record pretty well. Another line that stuck out to me was "I am older now and I no longer feel the same way that i did 5 seconds ago", and the way Phil delivers it sort of conveys this acceptance, as if at 41 he's finally moving towards accepting that the true state of all things is change. He quotes himself from 19 years ago saying "there's no end", but with significantly different delivery: originally it had this finality to it, but here it feels like he's expecting more to come. The theme of change or lack thereof is played with all over the record, there's this acoustic guitar part that flows in and out of the record, as well as a few lyrical motifs. The photo montage in the video reflects this too, with the photos having similarities between them, rarely repeating, with some pictures of people fading half in half out of the shots.
There's this line "I watched the dunes migrate slowly" in the first half of the album which I think holds alot of weight- Phil sings about driving out to the ocean by himself, perhaps a continuation of going there with his family, and then I think uses this idea of watching dunes migrate to symbolise him watching things slowly shift and change throughout his life. The album is filled with loads of little nuggets like this that you can expand on and link elsewhere on this album and Phil's other work.
Another theme of the album is that it's extremely meta, going so far as to have Phil pondering the name of the album within the album, and then admitting that "every song I've ever sung is about the same thing, basically", which gives the album this almost defeatist finish as it ends abruptly not long after.
I think the album is deliberately created such that it does feel like a naturally flowing reflection of memories that are then forgotten- the monotony of the acoustic guitar, the repeated lyrical motifs of the sun rising; the album sort of makes me lose track of time when listening to it. It doesn't slog, it always feels like it has direction, despite some of the lyrical themes.
I think the album's monolithic length and weight could also symbolise the human experience itself- it's this huge thing that's impossible to consume or look at objectively at once, we all move through it with ups and downs, people that fall and out of our lives, moments that happen and are remembered or forgotten, and then it just ends- be it with death, or reaching our current conscious moment. It comes across as one of those albums that I'm going to be listening to for ages and keep linking bits together months, probably years into the future, and again, that's probably by design. I feel like I've hardly scratched the surface with my current 4 listens, and that there's still so much to find in here. Probably the best album that's come out this year. Check it out.
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