After 2020’s return to his beloved moniker The Microphones, Phil Elverum has now switched back to Mount Eerie for a new record called Night Palace, which will arrive on 1 November through P.W. Elverum & Sun. The new album is 26 tracks and 80 minutes long, so it’s only right that he give us two songs from it to get us salivating, which he has duly done with “Broom Of Wind” and “I Walk”.
“Broom Of Wind” is, dare we say it, poppy. For Elverum it is positively light and bright, and you can imagine him bobbing along with a grin on his face and a spring in his step as he carries out the sweeping he describes in the song. It’s over and gone in under two minutes of imagistic and lovely contemplation.
“I Walk” is more of the Elverum we came to know; a gliding post-folk portrait of life in the wilderness with one’s thoughts. Wind howls in the background as his inner monologue overlaps mellifluously with his silvery guitar. It’s patient and poetic, gradually building to a light crash of cymbals like a small cyclone suddenly appearing from the back of his mind.
Both songs mark a definite step away from the diaristic style he had been utilising to process the loss of his beloved wife on previous Mount Eerie records A Crow Looked At Me and Now Only and shift back towards his earlier output.
Check out the video for “Broom Of Wind” and listen to “I Walk” below – or find both songs on streamers.
Mount Eerie’s new album Night Palace arrives on 1 November via P.W. Elverum & Sun (pre-order). You can follow him on Instagram, Twitter and Substack.
