WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.080 Welcome to today's deep dive. I'm so glad you're 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:07.059 here with us because today we are stepping back 00:00:07.059 --> 00:00:08.839 in time just a little bit. Yeah, we're taking 00:00:08.839 --> 00:00:11.279 a bit of a trip. Exactly. I want you to think 00:00:11.279 --> 00:00:15.000 back to the year 2005. That was a wild time for 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:17.739 media. It really, really was. I mean, if you 00:00:17.739 --> 00:00:20.000 remember 2005, you might remember it as this 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:23.300 major, this massive turning point for how we 00:00:23.300 --> 00:00:25.660 consume just about everything. Right. The iTunes 00:00:25.660 --> 00:00:28.620 music store was absolutely exploding. The very 00:00:28.620 --> 00:00:31.559 first iPod shuffle had just hit the market. Oh, 00:00:31.719 --> 00:00:34.640 man, the shuffle. I remember that. Right. And 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.210 music was, well. It was rapidly becoming weightless. 00:00:38.250 --> 00:00:40.530 We were trading in those physical CD booklets 00:00:40.530 --> 00:00:43.530 and those heavy vinyl records. And visible digital 00:00:43.530 --> 00:00:45.770 files. Exactly. Files that just lived on our 00:00:45.770 --> 00:00:47.369 hard drives. Everything was about convenience. 00:00:47.530 --> 00:00:49.450 Everything was about speed. Sort of the dawn 00:00:49.450 --> 00:00:51.409 of the bite -sized culture we live in now. Yeah, 00:00:51.450 --> 00:00:54.250 precisely. But right in the middle of that massive 00:00:54.250 --> 00:00:57.049 cultural shift toward frictionless consumption, 00:00:57.429 --> 00:01:00.390 an indie rock artist decided to release an album 00:01:00.390 --> 00:01:02.890 that demanded the exact opposite from its audience. 00:01:03.030 --> 00:01:05.299 And that is what makes this so interesting. It 00:01:05.299 --> 00:01:08.060 really does. So today we are exploring a Wikipedia 00:01:08.060 --> 00:01:12.000 article detailing the 2005 debut studio album 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:15.280 by the band Mount Eerie. The album is titled 00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:18.260 No Flashlight, Songs of the Fulfilled Night. 00:01:19.060 --> 00:01:21.659 Okay, let's unpack this. Our mission today is 00:01:21.659 --> 00:01:23.799 to look at how an artist attempts to communicate 00:01:23.799 --> 00:01:27.879 a sprawling, really complex philosophical worldview. 00:01:28.510 --> 00:01:31.709 In an increasingly bite -sized culture and perhaps 00:01:31.709 --> 00:01:33.810 more importantly, we want to see how the public 00:01:33.810 --> 00:01:36.250 reacts when a piece of art demands that you, 00:01:36.370 --> 00:01:38.409 the listener, sit down and do a little extra 00:01:38.409 --> 00:01:40.519 homework. What's fascinating here is that this 00:01:40.519 --> 00:01:43.439 deep dive is about far more than just a 2005 00:01:43.439 --> 00:01:46.599 indie rock album. Right. It really serves as 00:01:46.599 --> 00:01:48.719 a brilliant case study on information overload. 00:01:48.939 --> 00:01:51.680 It's about physical media versus abstract philosophy. 00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:54.060 And it really highlights the friction between 00:01:54.060 --> 00:01:56.299 the creator's intent and the critic's reception. 00:01:56.640 --> 00:01:58.379 Yeah, that friction is key. When you examine 00:01:58.379 --> 00:02:00.340 the source material for this album, you quickly 00:02:00.340 --> 00:02:02.519 realize you are looking at an artifact that actively 00:02:02.519 --> 00:02:05.299 protests passive consumption. It forces us to 00:02:05.299 --> 00:02:07.000 ask whether art should be something that just, 00:02:07.099 --> 00:02:08.960 you know, washes over you. or something that 00:02:08.960 --> 00:02:11.919 you have to actively decode. And to really understand 00:02:11.919 --> 00:02:14.800 the mechanics of that decoding process, we kind 00:02:14.800 --> 00:02:16.879 of need to establish the origins of the project. 00:02:17.080 --> 00:02:20.000 We do. Mount Erie is essentially the singular 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:23.000 vision of one key creator, and that's Phil Elverum. 00:02:23.060 --> 00:02:26.340 Right. For No Flashlight, Elverum took on almost 00:02:26.340 --> 00:02:28.830 every major role himself. I mean, he handled 00:02:28.830 --> 00:02:31.389 the lead vocals, the songwriting, the production, 00:02:31.449 --> 00:02:33.669 and the engineering. Which is a massive undertaking. 00:02:34.009 --> 00:02:36.150 Oh, absolutely. He did bring in a few collaborators 00:02:36.150 --> 00:02:39.650 to add texture to the project, though. T. Stolenwork 00:02:39.650 --> 00:02:42.289 handled the mixing at a studio called The Unknown. 00:02:42.550 --> 00:02:44.870 Great name for a studio. Yeah, very fitting for 00:02:44.870 --> 00:02:47.189 this project. And there are also guest appearances 00:02:47.189 --> 00:02:49.629 by artists Genevieve Castret and Jason Wall. 00:02:50.110 --> 00:02:52.590 But, you know, the recording locations themselves 00:02:52.590 --> 00:02:55.069 are what immediately stand out in the source 00:02:55.069 --> 00:02:57.530 material. They really do. The album was recorded 00:02:57.530 --> 00:03:02.129 between October 19, 2004 and January 30, 2005. 00:03:02.830 --> 00:03:05.250 And some of the tracking took place at a studio 00:03:05.250 --> 00:03:08.020 called Dub Narcotic. in Olympia, Washington. 00:03:08.319 --> 00:03:11.280 A legendary spot for indie music. For sure. But 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:13.360 the rest of the album, the source notes that 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:15.919 it was recorded at a location credited simply 00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:18.979 as Nowhere in Anacortes, Washington. Which is 00:03:18.979 --> 00:03:21.560 such a striking geographical statement. Just 00:03:21.560 --> 00:03:25.180 calling it Nowhere. Exactly. By crediting a studio 00:03:25.180 --> 00:03:28.659 as Nowhere, the artist is deliberately positioning 00:03:28.659 --> 00:03:31.780 the origin of this music entirely outside the 00:03:31.780 --> 00:03:35.460 standard commercial studio system. Yeah. It signals 00:03:35.460 --> 00:03:38.729 isolation. It signals this intense introspection 00:03:38.729 --> 00:03:41.969 before you even hear the very first chord. But 00:03:41.969 --> 00:03:44.449 wait, does that geographical isolation actually 00:03:44.449 --> 00:03:48.030 translate into the audio? Or is naming your recording 00:03:48.030 --> 00:03:51.030 space nowhere just, I don't know, a bit of indie 00:03:51.030 --> 00:03:53.229 rock posturing? That's a fair question. Because 00:03:53.229 --> 00:03:56.310 it sounds cool, sure, but... Does it really mean 00:03:56.310 --> 00:03:58.509 anything tangible for you as the listener? It 00:03:58.509 --> 00:04:01.069 does when you look at how that isolation manifested 00:04:01.069 --> 00:04:03.949 in the physical product. The introspection wasn't 00:04:03.949 --> 00:04:06.069 just a gimmick for the liner notes. It was baked 00:04:06.069 --> 00:04:08.669 right into the physical object itself. And that 00:04:08.669 --> 00:04:10.689 brings us to the actual release. This is where 00:04:10.689 --> 00:04:13.110 the story gets incredibly compelling for anyone 00:04:13.110 --> 00:04:15.069 out there who appreciates physical media. Oh, 00:04:15.069 --> 00:04:16.769 definitely. When this album was originally released 00:04:16.769 --> 00:04:21.509 in 2005, it was under the catalog name ELV005 00:04:21.509 --> 00:04:25.629 for the label. PW Elverum & Son, LTD in the U 00:04:25.629 --> 00:04:28.009 .S., and the Playrec label in Europe. Right. 00:04:28.129 --> 00:04:30.610 But it was not your standard plastic CD jewel 00:04:30.610 --> 00:04:33.089 case. Not at all. It wasn't just a basic vinyl 00:04:33.089 --> 00:04:35.850 record in a cardboard sleeve either. The physical 00:04:35.850 --> 00:04:39.089 versions of No Flashlight came bundled with this 00:04:39.089 --> 00:04:41.930 oversized labyrinthine fold -out poster. And 00:04:41.930 --> 00:04:44.189 the contents of that fold -out are entirely crucial 00:04:44.189 --> 00:04:46.569 to understanding what Elverum was trying to achieve 00:04:46.569 --> 00:04:48.370 here. He wasn't just, you know, giving you a 00:04:48.370 --> 00:04:51.180 standard track list. Far from it. On one side 00:04:51.180 --> 00:04:53.100 of this giant piece of paper, you get a large 00:04:53.100 --> 00:04:55.680 illustration. But on the reverse side, Elverum 00:04:55.680 --> 00:04:57.680 crammed the space with exhaustive footnotes. 00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:00.800 Just packed it. Yeah. We were talking detailed, 00:05:00.939 --> 00:05:03.879 paragraph -long explanations of the songs, obscure 00:05:03.879 --> 00:05:06.980 outside references, various clippings and photographs. 00:05:07.279 --> 00:05:09.540 And a lot to take in. Imagine buying a pop album 00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:11.720 today. But to understand the chorus you have 00:05:11.720 --> 00:05:14.439 to literally unfold a CVS receipt of philosophical 00:05:14.439 --> 00:05:16.439 footnotes on your living room floor. That's a 00:05:16.439 --> 00:05:18.579 great analogy. It was a literal map of his brain 00:05:18.579 --> 00:05:21.209 at the exact moment of recording. And if we connect 00:05:21.209 --> 00:05:23.389 this to the bigger picture, you know, for you 00:05:23.389 --> 00:05:25.949 listening right now, it speaks directly to how 00:05:25.949 --> 00:05:29.449 we process information today. We live in a world 00:05:29.449 --> 00:05:32.129 defined by doom scrolling, where articles and 00:05:32.129 --> 00:05:35.529 videos just flash past us in seconds. By providing 00:05:35.529 --> 00:05:39.050 this extensive physical map to his mind, Elverum 00:05:39.050 --> 00:05:42.029 was deliberately introducing friction into the 00:05:42.029 --> 00:05:44.470 listening experience. Friction. I like that word 00:05:44.470 --> 00:05:46.430 for this. Yeah. He was forcing his audience to 00:05:46.430 --> 00:05:48.709 slow down. The demand is very clear. You have 00:05:48.709 --> 00:05:50.560 to hold the context. in your hands and read along. 00:05:50.899 --> 00:05:53.779 It asserts that the audio is only one half of 00:05:53.779 --> 00:05:56.480 the equation. Right. The tangible written context 00:05:56.480 --> 00:05:58.980 is the other half. But is that an act of generous 00:05:58.980 --> 00:06:02.180 sharing or is it just a creator being, well, 00:06:02.199 --> 00:06:04.699 overly controlling? That's the debate, isn't 00:06:04.699 --> 00:06:06.339 it? Yeah, because it almost feels like a film 00:06:06.339 --> 00:06:08.779 director pausing the movie every five minutes 00:06:08.779 --> 00:06:10.699 to explain to the audience what the characters 00:06:10.699 --> 00:06:12.279 are feeling rather than just letting the art 00:06:12.279 --> 00:06:14.519 speak for itself. It is a huge demand on the 00:06:14.519 --> 00:06:17.120 listener's time. That is the core tension of 00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:19.779 the entire project. And the irony here is that, 00:06:19.879 --> 00:06:22.519 despite the sprawling supplementary reading material, 00:06:22.860 --> 00:06:25.839 the music itself is remarkably concise. It really 00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:28.220 is. We are talking about a lo -fi indie rock 00:06:28.220 --> 00:06:31.699 journey that spans 15 tracks, but clocks in at 00:06:31.699 --> 00:06:34.620 a brisk 37 minutes and 51 seconds. Very tight. 00:06:34.920 --> 00:06:37.480 Very. Although, if you lived in Japan, the Japanese 00:06:37.480 --> 00:06:40.319 version featured four bonus tracks, which extended 00:06:40.319 --> 00:06:43.259 the runtime to 45 minutes and 75 seconds. Wait. 00:06:43.769 --> 00:06:49.089 45 .75. Yes. Measuring time as 45 .75 is a highly 00:06:49.089 --> 00:06:51.629 peculiar, precise way to document a runtime. 00:06:51.930 --> 00:06:54.250 But that is exactly how it's listed in the source. 00:06:54.490 --> 00:06:57.209 That fits the vibe perfectly, honestly. It does. 00:06:57.350 --> 00:06:59.730 Those Japanese bonus tracks also included further 00:06:59.730 --> 00:07:02.110 collaborations, such as the song Waterfalls, 00:07:02.250 --> 00:07:04.550 which featured the artist Adrienne Orange. And 00:07:04.550 --> 00:07:07.310 the album didn't just disappear after 2005. It 00:07:07.310 --> 00:07:09.990 had a surprisingly long lifespan, which shows 00:07:09.990 --> 00:07:12.470 this continuous dedication to the sonic experience 00:07:12.470 --> 00:07:14.310 separate from... just the physical packaging 00:07:14.310 --> 00:07:18.410 ten years later in 2015 elverum returned to the 00:07:18.410 --> 00:07:21.639 project It was entirely remixed, remastered, 00:07:21.639 --> 00:07:24.560 and repressed with newly redesigned jackets under 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:29.240 a fresh catalog number, which was ELV037. Right, 00:07:29.319 --> 00:07:31.079 acknowledging the passage of time with the catalog 00:07:31.079 --> 00:07:33.199 number. Exactly. Now, for the casual listener 00:07:33.199 --> 00:07:35.560 out there, remastering an album essentially means 00:07:35.560 --> 00:07:37.879 taking the original audio and giving it a high 00:07:37.879 --> 00:07:41.139 -definition polish so it sounds pristine on modern 00:07:41.139 --> 00:07:43.899 speakers. Right. But doing that for a lo -fi 00:07:43.899 --> 00:07:46.839 album, a genre that is literally defined by its 00:07:46.839 --> 00:07:50.220 raw, unpolished... DIY sound full of tape hiss 00:07:50.220 --> 00:07:54.259 and rune noise is a fascinating paradox. It really 00:07:54.259 --> 00:07:56.439 is. You are polishing something that was specifically 00:07:56.439 --> 00:07:58.699 designed to sound rough. It shows that Elverm 00:07:58.699 --> 00:08:00.879 was deeply invested in the pure audio mechanics 00:08:00.879 --> 00:08:03.459 of the project, not just the philosophical concepts 00:08:03.459 --> 00:08:05.740 surrounding it. He cared about the sound. He 00:08:05.740 --> 00:08:08.439 spent a decade refining that dense physical presentation 00:08:08.439 --> 00:08:10.899 and tweaking the audio. Yeah. But at the exact 00:08:10.899 --> 00:08:13.480 same time, he possessed the self -awareness to 00:08:13.480 --> 00:08:15.399 completely deconstruct it. Yes. Here's where 00:08:15.399 --> 00:08:17.540 it gets really interesting. I love this part. 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:20.980 Right. Because despite all those exhaustive footnotes, 00:08:20.980 --> 00:08:23.220 despite the oversized poster and the clipping 00:08:23.220 --> 00:08:26.040 explanations, Elvira made an artistic choice 00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:28.899 that completely contradicted the need for any 00:08:28.899 --> 00:08:31.660 of that reading material. He really did. He took 00:08:31.660 --> 00:08:33.899 the drum tracks from this heavily conceptual, 00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:37.480 lyric -driven album. And he released them as 00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:40.440 a standalone project. An entirely separate album 00:08:40.440 --> 00:08:42.779 consisting of nothing but the rhythm section, 00:08:43.019 --> 00:08:46.779 no vocals, no lyrics, no deep philosophical musings, 00:08:46.799 --> 00:08:49.720 just drums. It was released under the highly 00:08:49.720 --> 00:08:52.559 practical title, The Drums from No Flashlight 00:08:52.559 --> 00:08:54.759 by Mount Erie. Straight to the point. And the 00:08:54.759 --> 00:08:56.940 justification the band gave for the spinoff is 00:08:56.940 --> 00:08:59.379 just wonderfully straightforward. According to 00:08:59.379 --> 00:09:01.539 the source, they simply said, quote, We felt 00:09:01.539 --> 00:09:03.740 the drums on No Flashlight sounded good enough 00:09:03.740 --> 00:09:07.419 to listen to by themselves. That decision highlights 00:09:07.419 --> 00:09:10.399 such a profound duality in the artist. On one 00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:12.480 hand, you have the overthinking philosopher handing 00:09:12.480 --> 00:09:15.059 you a dense syllabus so you can fully grasp the 00:09:15.059 --> 00:09:17.600 depth of his worldview. Yeah, the CVS receipt 00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:20.090 of footnotes. Exactly. But on the other hand, 00:09:20.129 --> 00:09:23.029 he is confident enough in the raw primal instrumentation 00:09:23.029 --> 00:09:25.929 that he is willing to strip absolutely all of 00:09:25.929 --> 00:09:28.610 the intellectualizing away. Wow. Yeah. He removes 00:09:28.610 --> 00:09:30.809 his own voice, he removes the context, and he 00:09:30.809 --> 00:09:33.370 just lets the beat carry the weight of the project. 00:09:33.570 --> 00:09:35.450 Which makes you wonder which version of the art 00:09:35.450 --> 00:09:37.669 is the critics actually preferred. Oh, the critics 00:09:37.669 --> 00:09:39.809 had a field day with this one. They really did. 00:09:40.090 --> 00:09:42.809 When a creator hands the music press a brief 00:09:42.809 --> 00:09:46.519 37 -minute indie rock album, tethered to a giant 00:09:46.519 --> 00:09:49.320 poster of esoteric text. How does the critical 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:51.940 establishment react? Well, looking at the source, 00:09:52.100 --> 00:09:54.659 we see a deeply fractured response. Very fractured. 00:09:54.840 --> 00:09:56.799 Let's look at the Metacritic score. It sits at 00:09:56.799 --> 00:10:00.779 a 72 out of 100 based on five professional critics. 00:10:01.100 --> 00:10:03.960 Now, a 72 might technically be categorized by 00:10:03.960 --> 00:10:07.559 the site as generally favorable. But in the realm 00:10:07.559 --> 00:10:10.200 of highly conceptual indie music, a score in 00:10:10.200 --> 00:10:12.500 the low 70s rarely means everyone thought it 00:10:12.500 --> 00:10:14.879 was just OK. Right. It's not a consensus of. 00:10:14.919 --> 00:10:18.159 average. No, it usually indicates a deeply polarized 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:20.740 reaction. It means some critics viewed it as 00:10:20.740 --> 00:10:23.220 a masterpiece of vulnerability, while others 00:10:23.220 --> 00:10:26.039 found it completely unbearable, and the average 00:10:26.039 --> 00:10:28.519 just meets in the middle. And the source material 00:10:28.519 --> 00:10:31.580 backs that up perfectly. Let's start with the 00:10:31.580 --> 00:10:33.799 critics who went along for the ride, the ones 00:10:33.799 --> 00:10:36.039 who embraced the friction and the heavy reading. 00:10:36.429 --> 00:10:39.370 The positive camp. Yeah. The publication Tiny 00:10:39.370 --> 00:10:42.409 Mixtapes offered a very positive review. They 00:10:42.409 --> 00:10:44.690 felt that Elverum was deliberately trying to 00:10:44.690 --> 00:10:47.230 communicate a particular message with little 00:10:47.230 --> 00:10:49.350 abstraction. Interesting word choice, little 00:10:49.350 --> 00:10:51.549 abstraction, considering all the footnotes. Right. 00:10:51.929 --> 00:10:54.669 But they praised the effort, writing that he 00:10:54.669 --> 00:10:57.649 was using the album to, quote, share with us 00:10:57.649 --> 00:11:00.269 something special to him, and he's doing so in 00:11:00.269 --> 00:11:03.379 the most honest way he can. Notice the emphasis 00:11:03.379 --> 00:11:06.419 on honesty there. For that specific critic, the 00:11:06.419 --> 00:11:08.500 exhaustive footnotes weren't seen as pretentious 00:11:08.500 --> 00:11:11.179 or controlling. They were interpreted as an act 00:11:11.179 --> 00:11:13.320 of radical vulnerability. Like letting someone 00:11:13.320 --> 00:11:16.279 read your diary. Precisely. The artist is laying 00:11:16.279 --> 00:11:18.620 all his cards on the table, inviting you entirely 00:11:18.620 --> 00:11:21.940 into his creative process. Portland Mercury echoed 00:11:21.940 --> 00:11:25.379 a very similar sentiment. Reviewers Zach Pennington 00:11:25.379 --> 00:11:28.500 and Adam Gnade pointed out that Elverum had just 00:11:28.500 --> 00:11:30.960 released three consecutive records of progressive 00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:35.279 conceptual vision. He was on a run. He was. But 00:11:35.279 --> 00:11:38.740 they felt no flashlight served a different purpose 00:11:38.740 --> 00:11:41.919 entirely. They wrote that the album seems to 00:11:41.919 --> 00:11:44.720 be more about a search for something than a destination. 00:11:44.759 --> 00:11:47.960 A search. Yeah. Even if the project was sometimes 00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:50.899 frustrating to decode, they argued it was the 00:11:50.899 --> 00:11:53.860 questions that kept them coming back. They ended 00:11:53.860 --> 00:11:56.440 their critique by asking their readers to ponder, 00:11:56.519 --> 00:11:59.840 quote, what does Mount Erie mean anyway? Which 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:02.860 is such a profound way to engage with a piece 00:12:02.860 --> 00:12:05.879 of art. The Portland Mercury reviewers are essentially 00:12:05.879 --> 00:12:08.860 validating the friction Elverum introduced. They're 00:12:08.860 --> 00:12:10.460 saying the confusion is part of the experience. 00:12:10.700 --> 00:12:13.059 They are arguing that the confusion is the point. 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:15.539 The messy search for meaning is the art itself, 00:12:15.799 --> 00:12:18.299 not just the finished melody. We see that praise 00:12:18.299 --> 00:12:20.820 continued by Elizabeth Newton over at the Quietus. 00:12:21.139 --> 00:12:23.320 She really gravitated toward the psychological 00:12:23.320 --> 00:12:26.379 aspects of the album. She praised the fluctuations 00:12:26.379 --> 00:12:29.559 in Elverum's persona, describing the vibe as 00:12:29.559 --> 00:12:32.720 being self -consciously sullen and wrung from 00:12:32.720 --> 00:12:35.259 second thoughts. Wow, wrung from second thoughts. 00:12:35.299 --> 00:12:37.720 That's a great description of that lo -fi, over 00:12:37.720 --> 00:12:40.440 -analyzed aesthetic. Newton argued that despite 00:12:40.440 --> 00:12:43.080 that internal conflict, it adds up to a stable 00:12:43.080 --> 00:12:46.379 whole because his tone is so distinctive. Her 00:12:46.379 --> 00:12:49.080 ultimate conclusion was that the music is laced 00:12:49.080 --> 00:12:51.419 with its maker's insistent worldview at every 00:12:51.419 --> 00:12:54.080 turn, and it's better for it. So the positive 00:12:54.080 --> 00:12:56.500 camp is largely united in the belief that the 00:12:56.500 --> 00:12:59.899 artist's insistent worldview enhances the music. 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:02.220 Yeah, they bought into it. The philosophy doesn't 00:13:02.220 --> 00:13:04.759 crowd out the art. The philosophy is the bedrock 00:13:04.759 --> 00:13:07.159 that makes the art interesting to them. But surely 00:13:07.159 --> 00:13:10.159 there is a limit, right? Because for every critic 00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:12.320 who loved the search for meaning, there was another 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:14.980 who felt the philosophy absolutely suffocated 00:13:14.980 --> 00:13:17.370 the music. And here is where the divide happens. 00:13:17.649 --> 00:13:19.950 We start to see this pushback bubble up in a 00:13:19.950 --> 00:13:22.549 mixed review from Stylus. They actually enjoyed 00:13:22.549 --> 00:13:24.789 parts of the album, to be fair. They specifically 00:13:24.789 --> 00:13:27.649 highlighted the track How, praising it for being 00:13:27.649 --> 00:13:30.629 beautifully hummed. And it is worth noting that 00:13:30.629 --> 00:13:34.789 How... Is the track featuring guest artist Genevieve 00:13:34.789 --> 00:13:37.129 Castret providing those humming vocals? Right. 00:13:37.210 --> 00:13:40.370 It is a perfect example of how the raw musicality 00:13:40.370 --> 00:13:43.490 of the album succeeds when you focus on the texture 00:13:43.490 --> 00:13:45.769 rather than the text. The sound versus the reading. 00:13:45.990 --> 00:13:48.990 Because when stylists focused on the text, they 00:13:48.990 --> 00:13:51.429 were not impressed. Oh, not at all. They argued 00:13:51.429 --> 00:13:53.710 that Elverum's overarching concept was a rather 00:13:53.710 --> 00:13:56.899 muddled one. They called his insistence on explaining 00:13:56.899 --> 00:13:59.940 everything a surfeit explanation bordering on 00:13:59.940 --> 00:14:02.539 the absurd. Bordering on the absurd. That's harsh. 00:14:02.799 --> 00:14:05.360 Yeah. They felt that handing the listener a giant 00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:07.700 poster of context actually detracted from the 00:14:07.700 --> 00:14:09.919 album at key moments. Did they point to a specific 00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:12.480 moment where the philosophy fell flat for them? 00:14:12.620 --> 00:14:16.059 They did, and it is pretty brutal. Stylus pointed 00:14:16.059 --> 00:14:18.799 out a specific lyric from a track called No Inside, 00:14:18.980 --> 00:14:21.620 No Out that really made them cringe. Let's hear 00:14:21.620 --> 00:14:24.179 it. They labeled it an unfortunate lyric. It'd 00:14:24.179 --> 00:14:27.259 go like this. Because the pupil of my eye is 00:14:27.259 --> 00:14:29.960 a hole. There's no inside and there's no out. 00:14:30.419 --> 00:14:33.210 The world is in me and I am in the world. okay 00:14:33.210 --> 00:14:35.529 you can certainly see how a lyric like that could 00:14:35.529 --> 00:14:38.090 divide an audience yeah it's very it's very earnest 00:14:38.090 --> 00:14:40.330 in the right environment accompanied by raw tape 00:14:40.330 --> 00:14:43.389 hiss and acoustic guitars that might feel like 00:14:43.389 --> 00:14:46.649 a profound zen meditation to someone sure but 00:14:46.649 --> 00:14:48.950 to a skeptical music critic it might just sound 00:14:48.950 --> 00:14:51.029 like something a teenager scribbled in the margins 00:14:51.029 --> 00:14:53.389 of their high school notebook and nobody was 00:14:53.389 --> 00:14:56.990 more skeptical than pitchfork oh pitchfork The 00:14:56.990 --> 00:15:00.830 reviewer, Sam Ubel, gave the album a flat 5 .0 00:15:00.830 --> 00:15:03.889 out of 10, and his critique was absolutely scorching. 00:15:04.009 --> 00:15:06.509 They don't hold back. Never. Ubel acknowledged 00:15:06.509 --> 00:15:08.950 that demanding listener input isn't inherently 00:15:08.950 --> 00:15:12.009 a bad thing, but he felt that the way Elverum 00:15:12.009 --> 00:15:14.889 went about it, demanding the audience endlessly 00:15:14.889 --> 00:15:17.870 ponder his persona and read his notes crossed 00:15:17.870 --> 00:15:20.759 a major line. Ubel actually called the album 00:15:20.759 --> 00:15:24.159 esoteric hooey. Esoteric hooey. That is a highly 00:15:24.159 --> 00:15:26.940 specific, devastating critique. It really is. 00:15:27.019 --> 00:15:29.759 It completely strips away all the mystique of 00:15:29.759 --> 00:15:32.000 recording in a place called nowhere. He went 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:35.519 even further, too. Ubel called the approach disingenuous 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:37.940 and annoying and went as far as to claim that 00:15:37.940 --> 00:15:40.679 Elverum now makes boring music that is premised 00:15:40.679 --> 00:15:43.279 on his persona and the explanation thereof. Wow. 00:15:43.460 --> 00:15:46.000 He fundamentally rejected the entire premise 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:48.480 of the oversized foldout and the dense footnotes. 00:15:49.259 --> 00:15:51.580 To Pitchfork, the explanations weren't an honest 00:15:51.580 --> 00:15:54.100 gift to the listener. They were a crutch designed 00:15:54.100 --> 00:15:57.360 to prop up uninspired songs. This raises an important 00:15:57.360 --> 00:15:59.779 question for you, the listener, to consider in 00:15:59.779 --> 00:16:02.980 your own life. When you are engaging with any 00:16:02.980 --> 00:16:06.799 complex piece of information, how much work should 00:16:06.799 --> 00:16:10.480 it demand from you? When does a creator's deep, 00:16:10.539 --> 00:16:13.019 footnote -heavy worldview cross that invisible 00:16:13.019 --> 00:16:15.779 line? At what point does a generous sharing of 00:16:15.779 --> 00:16:18.039 knowledge transform into an exhausting, demanding 00:16:18.039 --> 00:16:20.600 chore? It's subjective, isn't it? It is a very 00:16:20.600 --> 00:16:23.179 delicate balance. We want our artists, our authors, 00:16:23.220 --> 00:16:24.879 and our leaders to have a distinct worldview, 00:16:25.159 --> 00:16:27.679 but we also expect the work to stand on its own 00:16:27.679 --> 00:16:30.179 two feet without requiring a supplementary textbook 00:16:30.179 --> 00:16:32.120 to make sense of it. So what does this all mean? 00:16:32.379 --> 00:16:34.860 When we look back at the Wikipedia page for Mount 00:16:34.860 --> 00:16:37.799 Yuri's No Flashlight, Songs of the Fulfilled 00:16:37.799 --> 00:16:39.779 Night, we are left with a perfectly balanced 00:16:39.779 --> 00:16:43.139 dual nature. We really are. On one hand, you 00:16:43.139 --> 00:16:45.360 have a piece of work that the publication exclaims 00:16:45.360 --> 00:16:48.399 it. specifically included in a ranking of Elverum's 00:16:48.399 --> 00:16:51.559 essential albums. It's a project that bravely 00:16:51.559 --> 00:16:55.360 protests passive consumption. It asks its audience 00:16:55.360 --> 00:16:58.159 to read extensive footnotes, examine clippings, 00:16:58.159 --> 00:17:00.299 and ponder their place in the universe while 00:17:00.299 --> 00:17:02.779 listening to lo -fi indie rock. And then there's 00:17:02.779 --> 00:17:05.319 the other hand. Exactly. On the exact same hand 00:17:05.319 --> 00:17:07.940 from the exact same recording sessions in Nowhere, 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:10.680 Washington, you just have a collection of really, 00:17:10.740 --> 00:17:12.680 really good drum tracks that work all on their 00:17:12.680 --> 00:17:15.359 own. It is a powerful reminder that complexity 00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:17.740 and simplicity can comfortably coexist within 00:17:17.740 --> 00:17:20.500 the same creator and even within the exact same 00:17:20.500 --> 00:17:22.720 project. And think about how that applies to 00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:25.359 your daily routine, whether you are parsing through 00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:27.880 a dense 50 -page financial report for a Monday 00:17:27.880 --> 00:17:30.220 morning meeting or trying to wrap your head around 00:17:30.220 --> 00:17:32.799 an entirely new academic field. Or just listening 00:17:32.799 --> 00:17:36.180 to an obscure indie rock album from 2005. Right. 00:17:36.599 --> 00:17:38.740 There is a constant push and pull. There is always 00:17:38.740 --> 00:17:41.180 a balance to be struck between the overarching, 00:17:41.380 --> 00:17:44.700 complicated philosophy of a subject and the simple 00:17:44.700 --> 00:17:46.779 underlying rhythm that actually keeps it moving 00:17:46.779 --> 00:17:49.059 forward. You don't always have to understand 00:17:49.059 --> 00:17:51.960 the sprawling footnotes to feel the beat. I want 00:17:51.960 --> 00:17:53.779 to leave you with a final thought to mull over, 00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:56.180 something that builds on this tension we've explored 00:17:56.180 --> 00:17:59.279 today. Please do. Imagine an artist creates a 00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:02.859 work so dense, so layered, and so philosophically 00:18:02.859 --> 00:18:06.539 complex that it literally requires a giant physical 00:18:06.539 --> 00:18:09.599 map of text just to explain his state of mind. 00:18:09.740 --> 00:18:11.779 The ultimate homework assignment. Right. But 00:18:11.779 --> 00:18:14.279 then that same artist turns around and releases 00:18:14.279 --> 00:18:17.099 an instrumental version consisting solely of 00:18:17.099 --> 00:18:19.680 the raw drum tracks. Yeah. Which version is actually 00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:21.299 communicating the truest meaning? meaning of 00:18:21.299 --> 00:18:24.400 the art can the primal wordless rhythm of a drum 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:26.980 set say more about the human experience than 00:18:26.980 --> 00:18:29.900 a thousand carefully curated footnotes ever could 00:18:29.900 --> 00:18:32.599 now that is something to think about thank you 00:18:32.599 --> 00:18:34.539 so much for joining us on this deep dive we will 00:18:34.539 --> 00:18:35.240 catch you next time