For two decades, Phil Elverum has been one of the most adored and enigmatic figures in DIY music, recording fuzzily intimate folk-pop songs from his seaside outpost of Anacortes, Washington, 100 miles north of Seattle.
He rose to prominence as the frontman for the Olympia band the Microphones, whose 2001 album The Glow Pt. 2 is considered an indie classic. The group disbanded in 2003, and Elverum has largely recorded under the name Mount Eerie ever since.
Last month, he released the eighth Mount Eerie album, A Crow Looked at Me. Across 11 tracks and 41 minutes, Elverum plainspokenly processes the death of his wife, the artist Geneviève Castrée, who succumbed to pancreatic cancer last July. Elverum wrote and recorded the songs at home just a few months after Castrée’s death, often squeezing in sessions while the couple’s toddler was playing at a family friend’s house.
The songs on A Crow Looked at Me are sparsely arranged—often just Elverum’s voice, acoustic guitar, simple percussion, and some home-recorded hiss—and steadfastly devastating, a stream-of-consciousness collage of final breaths, motherless children, fading memories, and ashes in a jar. Someday, people will consider this album when they argue about the saddest works of art ever made.