In the photo above you can see Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie, Microphones, D+), Calvin Johnson (The Cave Dwellers, The Halo Benders, K Records), and Karl Blau (Karl Blau, D+). So yes, it is that time of year again. The sun is out (for once) in Western Washington and all the unique individuals in Anacortes come out of their hiding places (and their friends come up from Olympia) for the annual What The Heck Fest! I went last year (hence the above photo) and things went down like …

About six months ago, I became completely obsessed with zombies films, mostly due to the brilliance behind Robert Kirkman‘s The Walking Dead books and the airing of the series on AMC. As Season 1 comes out on DVD and BluRay today, I figured the time was right to post this. So I buckled down and finished my zombie soundtrack podcast, filled with songs I felt perfect for a zombie film. Be assured: this will not be your typical zombie mix.

You’re nuts if you pass up a chance to see Microphones perform live. After all, they’re typically billed as Mount Eerie these days. Essentially, they’re the same band and the music they make is, for lack of a better term, eerily similar. For the final performance Department of Safety would ever have, Microphones were the obvious choice of performer to conclude it all.

2009 is a tough year to judge. I’ve checked out more albums this year than any year in the past. Well over 1,000. And there have been quite a few great ones as well. When this list began, it had 110 albums. I abandoned my top 33 and 1/3 for 45, and then said “screw it” and upped the number to an even 50. These are the top notch albums of the year, all worthy of praise.

When I compiled my original Best Of 2008 list last December, it was a snow day. The sky dropped about a foot, maybe a foot and a half of fluffy white stuff and we lowly sub-compact drivers could go nowhere. Between ranking albums and locating album art, I took a stroll around town with my camera. The above image comes from that trek. Overall, I was pretty happy with last year’s list but, in revisiting all the albums from 2008, I now see quite a few …

Upon learning of the new Bakers At Dawn album and covering the band’s new video, another discovery was made. That of Cory Landels, the director of said video and mastermind behind this video for Mount Eerie‘s “Between Two Mysteries”, one of my favorite tracks of 2009. Comparing the two, both have the same look and feel. But where “Mesmophone” was pleasant and, in a way, calm; “Between Two Mysteries” has an obvious eerie nature to it. Yet there’s something romantic about the video; as if it …

I recently began reading Dawn by Phil Elverum, a masterfully printed book accompanied by a CD that delves into his time spent and psyche during an extended winter stay in the barren northern region of Norway. And while Dawn finds Elverum giving a slight nod to the beats and Kerouak, his new one under the guise of Mount Eerie, Wind’s Poem, leans more toward David Lynch. It also finds Elverum straying from the soft guitar poetry that has dominated the more recent work produced in the Mount Eerie name.

Written by Fense
It’s hard to call one of the most promising acts I’ve discovered this year a promising act. After all, they’ve been gracing us with their music for quite some time now; I just haven’t been paying attention. The group is Mount Eerie, and I was delighted to see their label, P.W. Elverum & Sun, Ltd., is based out of Anacortes – a mere twenty minutes or so from my weekday home of Edison, WA.