Send "Mount Eerie " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchforkmedia |
 At a glance, a Phil Elverum/Julie Doiron meet-up seems entirely apt, perhaps even inevitable. The two share collaborators, hail from sleepy corners of their respective countries, and make music a Last.fm or Pandora bot would more than likely peg as "similar." Viewed a certain way, however, the two couldn't be more far afield. Elverum, as a songwriter, has long occupied himself with The Big Questions, his catalog full of probing meditations on birth and death, the elements, and the unknown. Doiron, conversely, has consistently stuck to the simple and domestic, quietly reveling in the tangible and everyday. Songs such as "Snowfalls in November" are patiently observed odes to satisfaction and serenity in the absolute. In short, Doiron is the contented period to Elverum's searching question mark.The mini-album Lost Wisdom represents an intersection of those two distinct sensibilities and their resulting voices: Elverum, his tone often hesitant and sorrowful; Doiron, her singing reassuringly direct and familiar. For Doiron, this is a chance to wrap her warm, homespun vocals around Elverum's words of uncertainty, bringing earthly color to songs which, under the Mount Eerie banner alone, might emerge cold and gray. From her entrance on opening track "Lost Wisdom", a stately rumination rife with natural imagery which sets the tone for the album, through her solitary vocal on the Songs-era Leonard Cohen-evoking "If We Knew...", and on to the closing duet "Grave Robbers", Doiron is a reassuring presence in song-world often threatening to capitulate to doubt....full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| On his second album It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water, the Microphones Phil Elverum recorded a cover of Eric’s Trip’s "Sand," paying homage to one of his favorite bands. Eric’s Trip was, by nature, hard to pin down, incorporating harsh, industrial-strength feedback, aggressively lo-fi production and bubblegum pop melodies in a volatile mix of sounds. After the band broke up, bassist Julie Doiron went the solo route, both under her own name and as Broken Girl, often exploring a delicate, acoustic, obliquely confessional aesthetic not too far removed from Elverum’s own. On Lost Wisdom, the two work together for the first time, with Doiron singing 10 Elverum songs. Elverum and Doiron both have a knack for absolute simplicity. Lost Wisdom is not a long album – clocking in at just under 25 minutes – nor is it especially elaborate. Most of the songs rely on voice and guitar alone to make their case. And yet, how splendid they are, layered and looped in madrigals rounds and descants ("Voice in Headphones") or nakedly unadorned ("Flaming Home")....full text |
| Sputnikmusic |
| God, it’s 3 a.m. and I can’t sleep. My vision is blurry, my arms heavy, but I’m stuck, restlessly thinking, staring at my ceiling. I put on something soft, quiet, to ease the tension a little. It’s counter-productive (sleep in silence) but the voice that fills the room is an immediate comfort. He is there, lonely and morose, calmer, wiser, a soul searching. I can feel his words trip over my cotton sheets, the floor rumbling with the quick, tender, slightly sloppy melodies. But she’s a presence: beautiful, melancholic, strong but weary, with a frustratingly stubborn optimism that blurs the intent behind her words. “Fog obliterates the morning and I don’t know where I am / the heart is pounding and you are always on my mind,” they sing together and you can hear the space growing. “You thought you knew me / you thought our house was home,” she sings and he echoes; “I saw your picture out of nowhere / and forgot what I was doing,” he sighs and she mimics. And they reach some sort of pivotal moment when the weight behind the song shifts uncomfortably on his metaphor: “I stood in the house and tried to hold the breeze.”...full text |
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