Pitchfork

Gasp! Could our Phil Elverum be ditching the gentle rustling of the Pacific Northwest's trees for the sweaty, diamond-studded hardcore underground? Well, almost. Alongside Norwegian drummer Kjetil Jenssen and Jason "Wolf Colonel" Anderson, the Microphones/Mount Eerie head honcho has crafted Black Wooden Ceiling Opening, a new six-song EP performed, as Phil notes, "in a 'hard core' style (kind of?)."

That "kind of," it would seem, is key. The Black Wooden in the title actually refers to Phil's new hybrid sound, which he calls "kind of like Black Metal but made of natural materials." The set features radical reworkings of past Elverum triumphs in this Black Wooden idiom, carved into white vinyl and available from Phil/Southern Distribution May 27. Check out "Don't Smoke" in that little stream box down there.

But that's not all! In addition to the EP, a ten-track Mount Eerie bootleg CD and a big double-sided poster (printed on recycled stock at Hemlock Printers, the same place they made up that crazy felt-y paper for the Mount Eerie photobook) will join the party.

Speaking of parties, Phil's got quite a few of those lined up over the next several months. In addition to dates both at home and abroad, he'll hit Europe in May with No Kids, and pop in along the way at Malmö, Sweden's KRETS gallery on May 10. There he'll find an exhibition of his own art, including a ton of photos from the Mount Eerie Pts. 6 & 7 book, on display from that day through June 8.

And speaking of books, Elverum has yet another one in the works. DAWN comes our way later this year courtesy of Buenaventura Press and features 136 pages of "very intense journal writing from time spent in a cabin in northern Norway," along with photos, drawings, and a CD collecting "all the songs written there, played once and for all [with] just guitar and singing."

Finally, Phil fans the world over have only a few weeks before K Records lets 'em revel in that giant reissue of the Microphones' brilliant 2001 set, The Glow Pt. 2.



Black Wooden Ceiling Opening:

01 Appetite
02 Domesticated Dog
03 In Moonlight
04 Blue Light on the Floor
05 Don't Smoke
06 Stop Singing

Mount Eerie:

02-27 Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court *
03-04 Tucson, AZ - 601 E. Mabel St.
03-05 Phoenix, AZ - Trunk Space
03-06 Irvine, CA - UC Irvine ^
03-07 Los Angeles, CA - The Smell
03-08 San Francisco, CA - Enola Maxwell High School Auditorium
03-22 Anacortes, WA - Department of Safety
04-05 Vancouver, British Columbia - Hoku's
04-17 Seattle, WA - Vera Project %
05-07 Bergen, Norway - Straedet #
05-08 Oslo, Norway - Spasibar $
05-09 Gothenburg, Sweden - Koloni $
05-10 Malmö, Sweden - TBA $
05-11 Berlin, Germany - Volksbürne $
05-12 Leipzig, Germany - Ut Connewitz $
05-19 Paris, France - Flech d'Or $
05-21 London, Englnd - Plan B $
05-22 Bristol, England - Start the Bus $
05-24 Dublin, Ireland - Whelan's $
05-25 Nottingham, England - Dot to Dot Festival $
06-07 Kuldïga, Latvia - Zabadaks
07-18-20 Anacortes, WA - What the Heck? Festival

* with Calvin Johnson, Mahjongg, These Are Powers
^ with BARR, Jeremy Jay, Jeffrey Lewis & the Jitters
% with Why?
# with YACHT
$ with No Kids