AWmusic

I am often seduced by a good melody. Rarely do I sway as easily to rhythmical complexity or well-written lyrics; frankly, I think a band can get away without having either and still produce interesting, influential music. (Think Cocteau Twins). Any group, however, that can deliver
both melodic and lyrical depth is truly a keeper. And I should have suspected the combination of Mount Eerie’s Phil Elverum (the eccentric genius behind The Microphones) and Julie Doiron (the quiet, and best known offshoot of influential Canadian indie act, Eric’s Trip) as well as guitarist Fred Squire, would have been able to provide both.

I always find it a little voyeuristic listening to a Microphones record, since Phil Elverum’s songs occupy such painful and confessional dimensions. But Julie Doiron’s attitude to confessional
music employs more accessible strategies and in turn makes the whole record more accessible.

Lost Wisdom is undoubtedly a soft, sorrowful album of duets. And one which offers numerous songs that seem to climb into a climax on the horizon that never appears. It is also an album of short songs, and only ten in total, which makes it a short album. The complexity and
probing nature of the lyrics stand out both when dollopped with ennui, as the pair repeat lines like “emptiness prevails” on “Flaming Home,” or “everyone robs graves” in “Grave Robbers,” as well as in the buried subtleties of the plucked and flowing jewel of a track, “If We Knew.”
“With my hands out” as well as the title track “Lost Wisdom” contains some of Phil Squire’s Neil Young inspired guitar-work, which is always moody yet slight, never overbearing.

“Voice In Headphones” is my favourite song on the album because it sounds like the saddest church choir in the world. If you sing “it’s not meant to be a struggle” over and over again in the style of a plodding, percussion-less, dirge, no one will believe you. But the song is not a defeatist anthem. Rather, it seems want to defamiliarize the process of listening to music altogether, expressed in the question of who is the disembodied voice of the singer.

Supposedly, the album was recorded rather quickly, and this fact shows through in its sparse quality. There are rarely more than two or three instruments on any given track, and none of them employ drums. The songs have an unfinished quality about them, wherein lies a large degree of their charm. A fantastic work, all in all, I’d say. 8.0 out of 10.

Mount Eerie-Voice In Headphones
Mount Eerie-If We Knew
Mount Eerie-Grave Robbers

Tags: album