Mount Eerie is an Anacortes, Washington-based band fronted by Phil Elverum. Elverum is the principal member of the band, but he has collaborated with many other musicians on his records
Following the release of The Microphones' Mount Eerie album, Phil Elverum announced that he would no longer use the Microphones moniker, opting instead to record under the name Mount Eerie, after the area in Anacortes, Washington called Mount Erie. In an interview with CITR-FM's Discorder in September 2003, Elverum gave his reasons for this change: "Mount Eerie is a new project. The Microphones was completed, or at least at a good stopping point. I did it because I am ready for new things. I am new."
Shortly after this announcement, Live in Japan, recorded during three days of Elverum's tour in Japan in 2003, was released by K Records. Despite the fact that the album contained all new material, the album was credited to 'The Microphones'. The quotation marks contained in the release are credited to the fact that Phil Elverum considered this to neither be a Microphones project, nor a Mount Eerie release.
Elverum at UCLA in May 2004 (a few months after switching from The Microphones to Mount Eerie). Photo by David Greenwald.
Since the name change, Elverum has released a few singles, and limited vinyl-only releases. Elverum has also created a 3-LP recording of Mount Eerie titled Live in Copenhagen, released by Burnt Toast Vinyl in late 2004. The first Mount Eerie studio album was "No Flashlight" Songs of the Fulfilled Night, released on Elverum's own label, P.W. Elverum & Sun, Ltd. at What the Heck Fest in Anacortes, WA on July 16, 2005 and commercially released on August 16, 2005. Released domestically on vinyl LP (although the LP version contained a copy of the CD), the album contained an extremely large sheet of paper containing track-by-track liner notes and pictures.
July 2007 marked the release of an ambitious project, Mount Eerie pts. 6 & 7 a 132-page, hardcover coffee-table book of his photography, packaged with a 10" record. This book is the first large-scale publication of his photography.
The song Goodbye Hope appears in the 2010 film FAUX by Christopher Michael Beer.
Elverum was chosen by Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that was curated in March 2012 in Minehead, England.