Pitchfork: Mount Eerie's Phil Elverum Starts Record Label

Mount Eerie's Phil Elverum Starts Record Label
Kids, write today to see if he'll sign you!

Like the lovably average Rob Fleming (in the movie version, not the book), Microphones-turned-Mount Eerie's main man Phil Elverum has started his own record label. As if touring the shit out of that bitch weren't enough to keep him busy! The label, P.W. Elverum & Sun, will mark its establishment by releasing Thanksgiving's Welcome Nowhere on vinyl come October 5th (Secretly Canadian will distribute); copies will also be sold during Mount Eerie and Thanksgiving dates. In addition, Elverum's label has also put out the limited-edition Seven New Songs of Mount Eerie tour EP (which, sorry, is already long out of print).

But don't expect a Matador killer, folks: Elverum wants to keep his label low-key. He spoke to Pitchfork: "It's not a real record label. It's not a record label at all. I just got a [P.O. Box] and I decided to have there be a 'name brand' for all the different weird things I do. I really hope people don't start thinking I am going to 'sign' them."

Discussing the production end of things, Elverum said, "Everything is hand-made. I guess it's sort of my response to people and their computers. I have been getting even more extremely into the 'hand made' style. I plan on 'distributing' most of these records by selling them at my shows on tour. I plan on making all kinds of things. Not just records. And the records I do make will be vinyl. White vinyl."

So, apparently, the new label won't Elverum a businessman make, but that means he'll be able to focus on what he made his name on in the first place: his albums. And what about a new one? "There is no news about my 'new album,'" he says. "I have not recorded at all. I don't know what's going on. Everyone wants to know, and I myself really miss recording. I am taking a super long break from it, I guess, though not intentionally. I don't want to push it. [But] I don't want to keep putting out 'live albums' and weird shit forever. So, I am just saying, 'No, there is nothing.' But it's not because I am lazy. It's because I have been busy doing all kinds of other things and I don't want to rush it. I want to make something really good."

In the meantime, a documentary is in the works about Elverum and Kyle Field of Little Wings. The film will be paradoxically titled Wise Old Little Boy and will hit a DVD player near you on October 26th. The runtime of the actual documentary is around an hour, but the DVD will include another 60 minutes' worth of interviews and live performances. Trailers and pre-orders are already available through the Firefly Sessions website.