Having teased a new album over the past few months, Mount Eerie has announced Night Palace. The 26-track double album is out November 1 through P.W. Elverum & Sun, and the singles "Broom of Wind" and "I Walk" are out now.
In a self-written bio, songwriter Phil Elverum explained, "These songs point at a moment of release, of peace found in a non-intellectual lightning strike after long waves of turmoil and surrender."
The album is 80 minutes long, and Elverum hesitated to call all of the 26 tracks "songs," since one of them "is basically a long talk" and others "are brief shards of sound." He added, "I've never worked on something so patiently, with so much attention given to breathing room, and I feel like I'm in a whole new version of life."
There are a couple of unique physical editions for Night Palace. One is a book of the lyrics (plus a limited run of just 26 hardcover books, available for paid subscribers of Elverum's newsletter).
There's also a 2LP vinyl version, which comes "packaged in a humongous poster that folds into a wrapping kind of LP jacket." It's 43 inches by 62 inches — a little more than three and a half feet by five feet. Elverum called it "maybe the world's record for largest album cover," even bigger than the last time he released a huge poster like this, on 2005's No Flashlight. He wrote, "This poster is admittedly way too big. You might need to move to a different house in order to hang it on the wall."
It's available to pre-order here.
Hear the new songs below, including a video for "Broom of Wind." The tracklist for Night Palace is below that. The previously released compilation track "Huge Fire" is included. He has a small handful of shows scheduled, all in the US.
Night Palace:
1. Night Palace
2. Huge Fire
3. Breaths
4. Swallowed Alive (feat. Agathe Elverum)
5. My Canopy
6. Broom of Wind
7. I Walk 08 (Soft Air)
9. Empty Paper Towel Roll
10. Wind & Fog
11. Wind & Fog, Pt. 2
12. Blurred World
13. I Heard Whales (I Think)
14. I Saw Another Bird
15. I Spoke with a Fish
16. Myths Come True
17. Non-Metaphorical Decolonization
18. November Rain
19. Co-Owner of Trees
20. Myths Come True, Pt. 2
21. & Sun
22. Writing Poems
23. The Gleam, Pt. 3
24. Stone Woman Gives Birth to a Child at Night
25. Demolition
26. I Need New Eyes