It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water

Listening to this album feels like submerging yourself in the cold, grey waters of the Pacific Northwest. It is a record defined by its elemental obsessions, where the sound of a tape machine's hiss is just as important as the strum of an acoustic guitar.

Phil Elverum creates a world that is simultaneously intimate and terrifyingly vast, moving from delicate whispers to thunderous, distorted percussion that mimics the crashing of waves against a rocky shore.

It is the sound of 'charismatic sloppiness' elevated to a high art form, where every technical imperfection serves to heighten the emotional honesty of the performance.