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the microphones : it was hot we stayed in the water
It Was Hot We Stayed in the Water opens with Phil Elvrum singing, "My body stopped moving and quickly got cold/I made my escape through exhaling lungs/And watched my body run/Away" over an acoustic guitar that sounds like it's having an out-of-body experience. The chords jump between the speakers as they are strummed, and though it's only a simple trick applied to a simple guitar line, it adds up to something more complex. Many of the instruments on It Was Hot are similarly otherworldly. They're not slathered in effects; they just don't sound typical. Drums cut and slash, organs wheeze and exhale, and guitars smolder in their own distortion. Found sounds like crackling fire, clanging bells, and running water get swirled into the mix for extra atmosphere. It all adds up to the first ever lo-fi headphone album, a record that's lush and enveloping without ornate instrumentation or heavy production.
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Despite all the audio trickery, It Was Hot never loses the deeply personal quality that gives lo-fi its appeal. The Microphones are essentially Elvrum's solo project, with a few friends helping out on harmonies. When Elvrum tours, he doesn't take a backing band, distilling his songs down to bare chords and vocals, and his experience playing solo shows through. Most of the lyrics on It Was Hot are about weather, and the music often sounds like the work of a lone guitarist playing outside as storms of distortion and drumbeats pass overhead. Elvrum can conjure up quite a tempest, as in the all-out percussive assault of "Drums," but his songs are equally powerful when the bluster fades and we're left with just him, his guitar, and a fragmentary melody that lasts long beyond whatever sonic squall builds up around it. The intro to the 10-minute epic, "The Glow," is as rambling as the lyrics—"The blow came down from the hills/Followed by snow/Ohhhh/The snowy blow"—but it becomes more poignant as it gets overtaken by harmonies, guitar overdubs, and finally a charging pop drumbeat.
As a whole, It Was Hot is just as enduring as those simple song fragments. It's too ethereal to be a pop album, too straightforward to be an experimental album, and too modest to announce itself as the next breakthrough in the sagging DIY revolution. Instead, the songs subtly work their way into your subconscious, resurfacing long after the hype surrounding the next big piece of ear candy fades. (K) —Eliot Rose
All materials © 2001 The Yale Herald, Inc., and its staff.
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