The Microphones - Microphones in 2020
Aug 7, 2020
100
There is beauty to be found in restatement,
There is beauty to be found in rebuilding,
There is beauty to be found in repetition.

A museme is to music what a Morpheme is to linguistics,
It's a fracture of a statement it's what you get when you slice a word in half,
They can never stand by themselves but we use them every time in a resoundingly strong way.

Musematic repetition is when you take these fractures, these ideas of music and repeat them to build a framework,
Every time you write an ostinato or put a tape drone in your music that's musematic repetition.

But Phils music transcends language,
Phils music transcends musical language,
There is beauty to be found in repetition.

Phils music is all frameworks and all musemes.
Yes this album starts with the same two chords being repeated ad-nauseum that's a museme. That's Musematic repetition.
But on this record Phil tells you his life story and his career path. He's reliving his life infront of you his experiences and his vivacity become another fragment. They become another piece in this jigsaw puzzle of music.

Phils life is insperable from his music and he knows this,
Phil knows that his life has been put on display for the sake of art
There is beauty to be found in restatement.

Musicologist Theodor Adorno once said that Igor Stravinskys use of ostinato was "Resemble the schema of catatonic conditions in certain schizophrenics," Belgian composer once said that, "In repetitive music, repetition in the service of the death instinct prevails." andy maybe beneath this pretentious visage they were onto something. The way Phils music endlessly repeats yet consistently builds is almost representitive of a triumphant march towards death. Life doesn't last for ever and by extension neither does music. And I guess that's the biggest thing to take from this record. Is that this for Phil is an excercise in pure thanatism not unlike his 2017 record A Crow Looked at me. He's rebuilding, restructuring his life to prepare himself for death.

We all grow old, we aren't seventeen for ever.
Someday we will all have to change from The Microphone to Mount Eerie.
And if you know how to process it that's okay
But don't forget there is beauty to be found in rebuilding.

Now that I've got this rediculous pretense out of the way let's talk about the album itself.

This record is so lush and pretty and definitely feels like a proper callback to the music of The Microphones. The wide double tracking on the acoustic guitar sounds just like something on The Glow Part 2's more ethereal moments and the droning loud fuzzed guitars still hit you just as deep as they did years ago. And the laid back distorted drums keep a pulse beautifully. This isn't quite as diverse as the old records but it is just as well written and maintains the magic from the experimental production very well.

The lyrics are also quite a standout bridging the line between spoken word narration and canorous poetry beautifully with many callbacks to older songs which is always fun as hell.

This may be Phils finest moment as a creator I think it is a one hundred.

4 Comments
3y
dam shawty ok
3y
@PhilElverum Hey dude how fast can you piss?
3y
@PhilElverum Just confirm for the doubters I have seen your bussy?
Sign in to comment.
Advertisement
Rate and review albums along with the AOTY community. Create an account today.
Become a Donor
Donor badge, no ads + more benefits.
More Reviews
TreyLikesBands
ThrowBackG
Doublez
eliiiiiiii
Chode
Sagittarius
SnowyFighter
StygianHollow
Mellesteen
MusicN

February Playlist