Now Only is the ninth studio album by Mount Eerie, the solo project of American musician Phil Elverum. It was released on March 16, 2018, on Elverum's record label P.W. Elverum & Sun. Like the preceding Mount Eerie album A Crow Looked at Me, Now Only is a concept album in the aftermath of the death of Elverum's wife, the cartoonist and musician Geneviève Castrée; Elverum described it as the second part of that album. The album was entirely written and produced by Elverum, and recorded in the room in which Castrée died. The album departs from A Crow Looked at Me's raw and intimate style of writing, intending, instead, to answer grander and more introspective questions about Elverum's life after Castrée's death. Lyrically, the album focuses on themes of the aftermath of death and the lingering ghostly presence of the deceased. It continues the use of direct lyricism and nearly spoken delivery, first seen in A Crow Looked at Me. Now Only is musically similar to A Crow Looked at Me, although its songs are longer and feature some more diverse instrumentation. To promote the album, he released the singles "Distortion" on January 17, 2018, and "Tintin in Tibet" on February 20, 2018, and undertook tours of North America and Europe. Now Only was an immediate and widespread critical success; critics discussed the perceived sense of sadness and hope found in the album. It appeared on multiple year-end lists. Elverum's subsequent album Lost Wisdom Pt. 2 (2019) served as a continuation; furthering the themes of Castrée's illness and death.
Background and composition
In 2015, four months after the birth of their first child, Phil Elverum's wife, Canadian cartoonist and musician Geneviève Castrée, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She died at their home in Anacortes, Washington, on July 9, 2016. According to Elverum, Now Only is "part two" to A Crow Looked at Me. After releasing A Crow Looked at Me in 2017, Elverum decided that he did not want to play any of his older songs because they seemed "irrelevant" and so continued to write in order to have enough material to go on tour. Elverum wrote the album on pieces of paper left over from Castrée, noting their sentimental quality. The writing process took place almost immediately after A Crow Looked at Me. The album was recorded in Elverum's house in the room in which Castrée died. Moving on from the raw catharsis of the previous album, Elverum approached the writing of Now Only from an introspective perspective, attempting to answer the question of how Castrée exists in his life post-death. Elverum described this as the "thesis of the record, the question I'm poking at" The album cover is a picture of Elverum's refrigerator. It features a Walt Whitman quote: "Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes", photos of wildlife, Beat Happening and Castrée, postcards, portraits and friends' writing. Elverum chose to use his refrigerator as the album cover upon realizing how the images displayed on it had subconsciously influenced the lyrics.
Music and lyrics
Overview The lyrics deal with a number of topics such as the life Elverum and Castrée lived, "the absurdity of the bigger picture" of Elverum's life and Elverum playing the songs in public. Like in A Crow Looked at Me, time plays a significant role, with the range of events and dates being more extensive. The lyrics takes on a more direct descriptive manner rather the than the poetic style of his music before Castrée's death. In comparison to A Crow Looked at Me the lyrics are "stranger, sometimes facetious". Elverum described the songs present on the album as "deeper and broader" than those on A Crow Looked at Me. Elverum sings in a direct, sing-speaking, "stream-of-consciousness" manner. Despite every song dealing explicitly with Castrée, the central focus of the album is Elverum and his perspective on death. His perspective ranges from "ruminative, cosmic existentialism to carefully observed banality". The songs are musically similar to those on A Crow Looked at Me but longer, averaging seven minutes each, compared to A Crow Looked at Me's averaged less than four minutes. Elverum explained that the reason for this change was his interest in "having a more nuanced conversation." They have also been said to feature "richer instrumentation". The songs also feature multiple movements and follow non-linear narratives. Just like A Crow Looked at Me the theme of the absurdity of performing intimate material in public while pretending otherwise is present as is the theme of contextualising death, particularly in the song "Two Paintings by Nikolai Alstrup". The theme of "shifts in memory and posterity" which Elverum called the theme of album is also present, such as in songs like "Distortion". The role of art within the grieving process is also a recurring motif.
Songs The title of the song "Tintin in Tibet" refers to Tintin in Tibet, the twentieth volume of the comics series The Adventures of Tintin by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. A copy of Tintin in Tibet owned by Castrée previously appeared in the cover art of A Crow Looked at Me. Thematically similar to A Crow Looked at Me, the song details Elverum's memories of Castrée before her illness. It opens with a major chord. The song along with others on the album incorporates multiple tempo and instrument changes such as the transition from guitar chords to melodic riffs played on a classical guitar. The song also features cymbal crashes and snare rim hits.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
