On March 24, Phil Elverum is self-releasing a new Mount Eerie album called A Crow Looked At Me. The 11-track release was written and recorded after the death of his wife, Geneviève Castrée, who died last year from cancer. According to the press release, “Elverum wrote and recorded the album throughout the fall of 2016 in the same room where Geneviève died, using mostly her instruments; her guitar, her bass, her pick, her amp, her old family accordion, writing the words on her paper.”
A Crow Looked At Me can be pre-ordered through P.W. Elverum & Sun. Listen to the album’s opening track “Real Death” below, followed by Elverum’s statement about the album. Live dates will be announced shortly.
Why share this much? Why open up like this? Why tell you, stranger, about these personal moments, the devastation and the hanging love? Our little family bubble was so sacred for so long. We carefully held it behind a curtain of privacy when we’d go out and do our art and music selves, too special to share, especially in our hyper-shared imbalanced times. Then we had a baby and this barrier felt even more important. (I still don’t want to tell you our daughter’s name.) In May 2015 they told us Geneviève had a surprise bad cancer, advanced pancreatic, and the ground opened up. ‘What matters now?’ we thought. Then on July 9th 2016 she died at home and I belonged to nobody anymore. My internal moments felt like public property. The idea that I could have a self or personal preferences or songs eroded down into an absurd old idea leftover from a more self-indulgent time before I was a hospital-driver, a caregiver, a child-raiser, a griever. I am open now, and these songs poured out quickly in the fall, watching the days grey over and watching the neighbors across the alley tear down and rebuild their house. I make these songs and put them out into the world just to multiply my voice saying that I love her. I want it known.
DEATH IS REAL could be the name of this album. These cold mechanics of sickness and loss are real and inescapable, and can bring an alienating, detached sharpness. But it is not the thing I want to remember. A crow did look at me. There is an echo of Geneviève that still rings, a reminder of the love and infinity beneath all of this obliteration. That’s why.
A Crow Looked At Me tracklist:
01. Real Death
02. Seaweed
03. Ravens
04. Forest Fire
05. Swims
06. My Chasm
07. When I Take Out The Garbage At Night
08. Emptiness pt. 2
09. Toothbrush/Trash
10. Soria Moria
11. Crow
More about: Mount Eerie, The Microphones
