The searching, noisy-then-delicate music of
Eric's Trip had a big impact on
Phil Elverum's work in
the Microphones and
Mount Eerie, so this collaboration with
Eric's Trip and
Broken Girl singer
Julie Doiron and guitarist Fred Squire is inspired, if only because it makes the connection between
Elverum and
Doiron's music even stronger. Though
Lost Wisdom came together during some downtime for the three musicians, its simplicity and immediacy sound intimate instead of tossed off. This is the spare, somber, introspective side of
Mount Eerie, with just the barest hints of Squire's guitar adorning
Elverum and
Doiron's voices.
Doiron's singing, both with
Eric's Trip and
Broken Girl, has always been uniquely lovely and vulnerable, and
Elverum uses her as perfectly as he has
Mirah,
the Blow's
Khaela Maricich, and
Woelv's
Geneviève Castrée on other projects. He and
Doiron sound completely natural yet haunting trading verses and harmonies on "Lost Wisdom" and "Grave Robbers" -- both of their voices, and the music that surrounds them, have a deceptively fragile urgency that barely rises above a whisper for most of the album. Even the album's loudest moment, "Voice in Headphones" (which, along with "What?," could pass for one of the bonus tracks on the deluxe version of
the Microphones'
The Glow, Pt. 2), still fits with the rest of
Lost Wisdom's delicacy and directness. That simplicity applies to
Elverum's songwriting as well; his imagery becomes more tangible with the years, getting to deeper truths about love, death, and rebirth without getting too tangled in words: it doesn't get much more direct than "You Swan Go On"'s "With your hand down my throat/You held on to my heart/And pumped the blood through." "If We Knew..." is a sweet song about aging, love, and marriage that doesn't sound sappy, while a warm glow turns into a destructive fire on "Flaming Home."
Mount Eerie take many forms and sounds, showing how comfortable
Elverum is with just a room and a guitar or a large cast of players performing his songs;
Lost Wisdom is a small-scale gem that shows off his (and
Doiron's) gifts to their finest.