In a world dependent on synthetic pills and dot-coms, it's nice to know Phil
Elvrum (aka The Microphones) is out there. He is like a breath of fresh air in
the middle of Boston Chinatown, a pitchfork hidden in an array of electronic
tuners. He faultlessly transforms the basic rock elements into extensions of his
creative impulses. With an impulse here and an impulse there, the creative
juices ebb & flow as often as he sings about the moon, the fog, the wind, the
water, and the mountain tops-- which is a lot.
On Little Bird Flies into a Big Black Cloud (the sonic version of a book
he wrote last year of the same title) never have these impulses been so lucid.
Throughout its ethereal compositions, you'll hear new songs, old songs, and
pretty much everything in between. Cram previously released albums like Song
Islands, The Glow pt. 2, It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water, and Don't
Wake Me Up into a pencil sharpener, sprinkle the shavings on a nearby lake,
and you're getting closer to being a complete idiot that just ruined some great
albums. But don't fret, with this record by your side, you'll never want or have
reason to leave your house again, if only to repurchase the albums you ruined.
The beauty of the record lies in its simplicity. Recorded with a Neumann U67
microphone (set on cardioid) and a Sony Cassette Recorder, Little Bird reflects
Elvrum at his most sincere, and perhaps, his most vulnerable. It's incredibly
intimate; you can't help but feel as if you are staring over the shoulder of a
man writing the rough draft of a magnificent novel. Every piano chord, every
organ hit is like Elvrum himself poking you in the stomach with his fingers. By
the end of the record, you'll feel as if his whole hand is stuck inside the
gooey goodness of your voluptuous belly.
Relinquishing the acoustic guitar and stereo experimentalism for strictly piano
and organ, Elvrum bequeaths a relentless batch of songs that transcend simple
pop conventions. He recorded 40min of music with 40min of time; there's no
layered tracks, no patches, no re-recorded parts. Replete with wavering time
rhythms and fluctuating notes, the record has a relaxed, apathetic disposition.
It makes you feel comfortable and invites you to listen to its entire natural
splendor. Despite the "low" fidelity, these songs are far from mere demos or
blueprints or live versions; they are the sound of a process, a performance; the
sound of a song in its most naked state.
Generalizing the two sides of the record, the first is more "song" based, as
most of the tracks have a distinct beginning and end. Traces of past melodies
from previous albums ("I Want Wind to Blow," "The Glow pt. 2," "I'll Not Contain
You") haunt throughout, as Elvrum alternates between organ and piano. The tracks
on side two prove harder to discern from one another. With the exception of the
first two tracks (which are fucking amazing, mind you), the rest are built
around a somber chord progression. One moment he'll be singing above slow organ
notes ("There's No Invincible Disguise that Lasts All Day"), the next he'll be
singing a capalla ("Phil Elvrum's Will"). Though, despite the familiar melodies,
all 18 tracks are simply titled by its track number enclosed in brackets.
If anything, Little Bird is essentially a stripped-down Microphones
album. And if you are familiar with the Microphones, then you know you don't
have to strip down much to get to its core. As the trend with many great albums
of late, Little Bird is limited to only 400, all of them on vinyl, each
of them hand-painted and letter pressed. Every cover will be essentially
different, which is refreshing considering that nearly every other album cover
is pressed on a mass scale. (Mine features two floating heads on the back of a
Simon Joyner EP turned inside-out.) Once the 400 are gone, they are not coming
back. So, if you act quickly and do a little sifting on the web, you too can
have one of the most genuine albums released this millennium.
More about: The Microphones
