Mount Eerie @ Modified

Like a lot of things in my life, this concert review was put off and I can't remember why, I remember starting it and I thought I saved it as a draft, but nope! So here I am nearly four weeks later posting about what was probably one of the best shows I have seen this year. I'm not sure what I expected from Mount Eerie, the torn dysfunction of some of Phil's earlier stuff? The choppy sander of songs that last 15 mins. with little substance but overlayed strange sounds? I don't know, but what I got was the ragged weary breath of the road... and strangely enough it brought life.

I arrived late, and made if just in time to talk to Julie Doiron for a second before she went up with Phil and Mount Eerie. (I am assuming by now that you know that Phil Elverum is Mount Eerie) It was a simple set up, Phil on what looked like a home made guitar, nylon strings, no amp... miced. Julie and her beautiful voice, And Fred Squire, who awkwardly stared at his shoes all night, My Bloody Valentine style.

Phil introduced the band and explained that they were going to play all the songs off of Lost Wisdom (release of the week: 10/8). The randomness of the order was to be decided by two dice that they would roll before each and what ever the number, that was the song number from the album they would play.

I can't recall the song order, but it doesn't really matter. Each song was executed in exactness... and with such ease as to draw you into the lost world of Lost Wisdom. The melting pot that makes the match of Julie and Phil is a magical marriage of madness and miracles. Between each song, Phil would offer a little bit of coy banter and then the music would continue seamless and surreal. I think they could have played anything that night and it would have been beautiful...

We all set on the floor and drank the simple music of an America that is strange to most of us... and politics, work, love, loss, life were all melted into the soft sound of Mount Eerie. And we wanted not.

"Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?" - Jack Kerouac