With his newest effort Clear Moon out now and its counterpart Ocean Roar on the way later this year, prolific and luminary songwriter Phil Elverum corresponded with us via email about the acquisition of his recording space called “the Unknown,” his songwriting process, and the upcoming music festival he will help host (Anacortes Unknown). Elverum also manages to weave personal philosophy into his answers, touching on religion, the DIY mindset of the Northwest, the concept of home, and his own artistic ambitions. Read our correspondence below.
PPI: Was obtaining “the Unknown” something that happened naturally or was it the result of active searching for a space?
PE: It happened naturally. I was happy to be recording in a little room in my house, but when the possibility of renting that giant church became available it was hard to not get excited and figure out how to make it work.
PPI: Was a church coincidental or did you actively want to use what might be considered a sacred space for the recording of these songs?
PE: No. I am uncomfortable with churches and opposed to religions generally. If anything I think the building has some negative energy going on. There are weird sounds at night. But during the day when the light comes in it’s pretty incredible. I had to stop working there alone at night because I kept getting creeped out.
PPI: Is anyone else recording in “the Unknown”? Will it be used for other bands in the future?
PE: Yes. I have 2 studio partners that record other bands there all the time. I have done that a little and will probably do more production work in the future.
PPI: How much of the upcoming Unknown Music Series will take place there as opposed to the community centers and such where WTHF took place?
PE: Most of the Unknown Music Series will happen there, as well as downstairs from there which is the Croatian Club where Heck Fest events have happened for the last 10 years, and also the park across the street. It’s not a change. Just another room in the same building has become available.
PPI: With Clear Moon and the upcoming Ocean Roar, was there a deliberate decision to make two distinct albums from the beginning or did it happen organically?
PE: I was recording for a long time with no clear goal. About 2/3 of the way through I sat down and figured the 2 different albums out, and then I kept recording to make them more themselves.
PPI: Was one set of songs easier to write than the other, and if so, which?
PE: They weren’t sets of songs. It was just freestyle ambiguous experimentation. It was all difficult.
PPI: Do you have a pretty clear idea of where a song is going when you start working with it, or do the change quite a bit before their final incarnations?
PE: They change a lot. For me recording is very vague and exploratory, so I’m actually making the song up as it’s being recorded. Many versions get scrapped and redone and reworked. It’s like sculpting or something.
PPI: Obviously home is an incredibly important concept in your work. Do you think you’re drawn to Anacortes because you grew up there, or is there something the town offers more tangibly?
PE: I think it’s both. It really is amazing here, but I think a big part of why I feel that way is because it’s what is familiar and comforting to me. It’s hard to tell. All I know is my own biased view.
PPI: Why is recording, releasing, and hand-addressing and shipping your work (total control from conception to delivery) a model to which you are drawn? From where does that tendency derive?
PE: It’s like making bread from scratch. You see how these basic ingredients are working together and directly experiencing the outcome. You understand tangibly the whole process by eating the bread. Eating bread from an industrial bakery is still bread but it’s provenance is invisible and abstract. I want to do these details myself just to understand the process holistically, and then maybe grow into more complex forms of organization later. I don’t know why this is important to me. Maybe there’s a remnant of stubborn individualistic northwest pioneer mentality hanging on here? Maybe it has meshed with the punk/DIY movement to create a special northwest blend of stubborn radical small time industrialists. Maybe I was raised by stubborn land clearing, debt avoiding house builders and that’s just how I think things are done.
PPI: You have worked extensively in songwriting and music and have branched out into photography. Other than these mediums and designer packing tape, are there other artistic mediums in which you are interested in working?
PE: Yes, I would like to make movies. Ultimately I think movies are the highest art form. A dark movie theater with loud speakers and a huge clear screen is an amazing forum for presenting a created world to an audience. I haven’t gotten into it because it’s so involved and complicated, and much harder to commodify. It’s pretty fun going on tour and playing shows as a way of distributing the thing I make. It doesn’t sound as fun to go on tour and sit in a movie theater lobby with my merch table. There’s more of a participatory culture around music.
PPI: Your photography evokes similar thoughts and emotions as your music. Is your photography a deliberate extension of your musical projects or do they just come from that same part of your creative energy?
PE: I think they just inform each other back and forth. I’ve always had these photos around on walls and in my mind while making recordings, and much of the sound recording stuff I do, I think of it visually.
PPI: Which of the following five things do you think about most: fog, mountains, islands, the ocean, the moon?
fog
