Phil Elvrum sits down in this new Pinball Sessions video in his plaid shirt, with his hair untidy and his stubble pronounced. He’s slowly looking more and more like the kind of storyteller he has yearned to be for years now. Between the years his band was known as The Microphones and then Mount Eerie, Elvrum has released folk song after folk song. He has such an ear for harmony that his best material feels purely simple. At his best, Elvrum’s songs feel easy to make but are essentially much harder to conceive than imaginable.
He played the song Dragon which will be on Mount Eerie’s next full length album out apparently next year. It’s a humbling song that has no complexities about it. The chord progressions are easy enough to play along to, but one wouldn’t dare compete with his vocals at the same time. While his voice is nice, it’s a sin to sing along because Elvrum’s sincerity is reflective of the inner demons he has faced to tell this story. Or so it seems; He could just be a good enough folk singer to know how to pull the emotions of the listener by now. Nonetheless, he shouldn’t be silenced. I am not sure if the released version will simply feature the man and his guitar alone or if it will have more instruments going on, but I hope Elvrum keeps it simple. This stripped down arrangement is genuine. Many musicians try to only tell stories with just a guitar and the songs don’t call for that arrangement. Elvrum’s wise enough at this age to know what will work this way. Dragon is a lovely preview of what is to come from Mount Eerie, and it is a reminder that musical magic doesn’t always have to come from production.
