For the first
Microphones album in 17 years,
Phil Elverum chose a title that seems humble on the surface. The name
The Microphones in 2020 promises just a moment in time, but the music delivers much more than that: It's an all-encompassing experience that honors
Elverum's past and present selves. As he puts it at one point on its single, 44-minute-long song, "I was already who I am." This oral history of the project of his life captures not only his own recollections but the slippery nature of memories and of time. His words and music loop on themselves, inch forward, and retrace their steps as the gulf between then and now widens and narrows. Often, the album sounds like
Mount Eerie remembering a stashed-away
Microphones song, and
A Crow Looked at Me and
Now Only feel like antecedents to the wide, stream-of-consciousness swath that
The Microphones in 2020 cuts. Though it was a year in the making, it flows effortlessly, ensuring that
Elverum's audience is right there moving through time with him.