Mount Eerie

Sauna

P.W. Elverum & Sun

Street: 02.03

Mount Eerie = Scott Walker + Thanksgiving + Wolves in the Throne Room

Sauna could be the ultimate Mt. Eerie listening package. It is a record that pools all Elverum proclivities into a sturdy, swift-moving—but slow enough to warrant serious rumination on like, life and solitude and emptiness, etc—55-minute record that tackles the full-on sonic possibilities of Elverum’s forays into black metal, his eliding folk numbers, gorgeously fleshed-out pop songs, noise-tinged instrumental passages and the gloriously meandering middle-ground between the two.

Phil has the uncanny ability in his writing on Sauna to pull existentially devastating metaphors out of everyday imagery—pumpkins smashed on rocks, making coffee while in per-sistent dream-state—to playful kōans that work their way into your psyche and never quite get out. Elverum and co. create entire sonic worlds on thin magnetic tape, a world that is big enough consider wilderness, solitude and emptiness. –Ryan Hall