Biography
Phil Elverum operated the Microphones as his lo-fi project throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, presenting music marked by introspection and personal revelation. A limited number of albums appeared across the project's first period of activity, yet each successive release broadened the reach of his songcraft and, in turn, that of indie rock and pop. Don't Wake Me Up from 1999 already revealed Elverum's capacity to shape lo-fi recordings that balanced refinement with immediacy, at times with piercing emotional clarity. His understated vocals offset the sweeping, meticulously layered arrangements and production techniques, most notably throughout the landmark The Glow, Pt. 2 issued in 2001. Mount Eerie, released in 2003, extended the candid and open-ended character of his writing while incorporating atmospheric elements drawn from ambient, folk, and black metal, idioms he would continue developing under the Mount Eerie name later in the decade. When Elverum revived the Microphones for The Microphones in 2020, the core attributes established years earlier had gained further resonance.
Born and raised in Anacortes, Washington, Elverum took up the tuba and drums during childhood and formed his first band, Nubert Circus, at age 14. While enrolled at Anacortes High School he held a job at the local record store The Business. Store proprietor and former Beat Happening member Bret Lunsford recruited Elverum to play drums in his band D+, and Elverum contributed to the group's self-titled debut album of 1997 as well as the 1998 follow-up Dandelion Seeds. Lunsford also permitted Elverum to use the store's back-room equipment for his own recordings; the Microphones' earliest cassettes, 1997's Microphone and Wires & Cords, both appeared on Lunsford's Knw-Yr-Own imprint.
After high-school graduation Elverum relocated to Olympia, Washington, to study at Evergreen State College. There he encountered K Records founder Calvin Johnson and completed portions of the Microphones' debut album at Johnson's Dub Narcotic Studios. Issued in 1998 on Elsinor Records, Tests merged the Dub Narcotic material with tracks from the prior cassettes. While working as producer and engineer at the studio, Elverum also put out several Microphones singles in 1999—Bass Drum Dream, "Feedback (Life, Love, Loop)," and Moon Moon—alongside the project's second album, Don't Wake Me Up, which broadened Elverum's palette through dramatic peaks, lo-fi rock textures, and fragile melodic passages.
Following a tour alongside labelmate Mirah, Elverum commenced work on the next Microphones album. The opening installment of an elemental trilogy inspired successively by water, fire, and stone, September 2000's It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water included contributions from Mirah, Johnson, the Blow's Khaela Maricich, and Elverum's D+ bandmate Karl Blau, once again enlarging the project's scope. That same year brought the release of Window, a compilation of songs and excerpts drawn from Don't Wake Me Up and additional projects Elverum had assisted, among them Mirah's You Think It's Like This But Really It's Like This. Early in 2001 the Microphones issued the limited-edition Blood, which featured a cover of Björk's "All Is Full of Love" together with versions of material destined for Elverum's subsequent album. Appearing that September, The Glow, Pt. 2 earned widespread critical praise for its experimental character—blending black metal and ambient ingredients with conventional indie rock and pop—and for its searching lyricism. To promote the album, Elverum, Johnson, and Maricich undertook the Paper Opera Tour across North America and Europe.
After a series of solo performances, Elverum returned to Olympia and Dub Narcotic to begin the following Microphones album. During this interval St. Ives released the ultra-lo-fi 2002 set Little Bird Flies into a Big Black Cloud, while K issued the singles collection Song Islands and the single "Lanterns/Antlers." Named after the mountain on Fidalgo Island near Elverum's hometown, January 2003's Mount Eerie presented an even more expansive statement than its predecessor, recounting themes of life, death, and identity across five suite-like compositions. (Drums from Mt. Eerie and Singing from Mt. Eerie, isolating those respective elements, appeared concurrently.)
Following a February 2003 tour of Japan with Johnson and Kyle Field that yielded the concert album Live in Japan, Elverum discontinued the Microphones name and began recording as Mount Eerie. In 2004 he married Canadian musician and illustrator Geneviève Castrée of Woelv and Ô Paon and established the label P.W. Elverum & Sun. K Records reissued The Glow, Pt. 2 in 2007 with an accompanying collection of previously unreleased material titled Other Songs & Destroyed Visions. The same year saw the Microphones single Don't Smoke/Get off the Internet. Elverum maintained a steady output under the Mount Eerie banner, with notable entries including the metal-inflected grandeur of 2009's Wind's Poem, the tranquil electro-acoustic reflections of Clear Moon, and the dense sonic environments of Ocean Roar (both 2012). In 2013 P.W. Elverum & Sun reissued the Microphones catalog, and the archival set Early Tapes 1996-1998 followed in 2016.
After chronicling the period following Castrée's death from pancreatic cancer on 2017's A Crow Looked at Me and 2018's Now Only, Elverum performed a July 2019 show under the Microphones name. One year later he returned to the project once more with The Microphones in 2020, a single 40-minute composition performed on the first guitar he had owned.
Born and raised in Anacortes, Washington, Elverum took up the tuba and drums during childhood and formed his first band, Nubert Circus, at age 14. While enrolled at Anacortes High School he held a job at the local record store The Business. Store proprietor and former Beat Happening member Bret Lunsford recruited Elverum to play drums in his band D+, and Elverum contributed to the group's self-titled debut album of 1997 as well as the 1998 follow-up Dandelion Seeds. Lunsford also permitted Elverum to use the store's back-room equipment for his own recordings; the Microphones' earliest cassettes, 1997's Microphone and Wires & Cords, both appeared on Lunsford's Knw-Yr-Own imprint.
After high-school graduation Elverum relocated to Olympia, Washington, to study at Evergreen State College. There he encountered K Records founder Calvin Johnson and completed portions of the Microphones' debut album at Johnson's Dub Narcotic Studios. Issued in 1998 on Elsinor Records, Tests merged the Dub Narcotic material with tracks from the prior cassettes. While working as producer and engineer at the studio, Elverum also put out several Microphones singles in 1999—Bass Drum Dream, "Feedback (Life, Love, Loop)," and Moon Moon—alongside the project's second album, Don't Wake Me Up, which broadened Elverum's palette through dramatic peaks, lo-fi rock textures, and fragile melodic passages.
Following a tour alongside labelmate Mirah, Elverum commenced work on the next Microphones album. The opening installment of an elemental trilogy inspired successively by water, fire, and stone, September 2000's It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water included contributions from Mirah, Johnson, the Blow's Khaela Maricich, and Elverum's D+ bandmate Karl Blau, once again enlarging the project's scope. That same year brought the release of Window, a compilation of songs and excerpts drawn from Don't Wake Me Up and additional projects Elverum had assisted, among them Mirah's You Think It's Like This But Really It's Like This. Early in 2001 the Microphones issued the limited-edition Blood, which featured a cover of Björk's "All Is Full of Love" together with versions of material destined for Elverum's subsequent album. Appearing that September, The Glow, Pt. 2 earned widespread critical praise for its experimental character—blending black metal and ambient ingredients with conventional indie rock and pop—and for its searching lyricism. To promote the album, Elverum, Johnson, and Maricich undertook the Paper Opera Tour across North America and Europe.
After a series of solo performances, Elverum returned to Olympia and Dub Narcotic to begin the following Microphones album. During this interval St. Ives released the ultra-lo-fi 2002 set Little Bird Flies into a Big Black Cloud, while K issued the singles collection Song Islands and the single "Lanterns/Antlers." Named after the mountain on Fidalgo Island near Elverum's hometown, January 2003's Mount Eerie presented an even more expansive statement than its predecessor, recounting themes of life, death, and identity across five suite-like compositions. (Drums from Mt. Eerie and Singing from Mt. Eerie, isolating those respective elements, appeared concurrently.)
Following a February 2003 tour of Japan with Johnson and Kyle Field that yielded the concert album Live in Japan, Elverum discontinued the Microphones name and began recording as Mount Eerie. In 2004 he married Canadian musician and illustrator Geneviève Castrée of Woelv and Ô Paon and established the label P.W. Elverum & Sun. K Records reissued The Glow, Pt. 2 in 2007 with an accompanying collection of previously unreleased material titled Other Songs & Destroyed Visions. The same year saw the Microphones single Don't Smoke/Get off the Internet. Elverum maintained a steady output under the Mount Eerie banner, with notable entries including the metal-inflected grandeur of 2009's Wind's Poem, the tranquil electro-acoustic reflections of Clear Moon, and the dense sonic environments of Ocean Roar (both 2012). In 2013 P.W. Elverum & Sun reissued the Microphones catalog, and the archival set Early Tapes 1996-1998 followed in 2016.
After chronicling the period following Castrée's death from pancreatic cancer on 2017's A Crow Looked at Me and 2018's Now Only, Elverum performed a July 2019 show under the Microphones name. One year later he returned to the project once more with The Microphones in 2020, a single 40-minute composition performed on the first guitar he had owned.
Albums