The Bellwether

Phil Elverum, b. 1978

I grew up five miles into the woods outside the island town of Anacortes, Washington during the 80’s and 90’s in a post-hippie echo that normalized saying “hello” out loud to the nearby mountains, waters and animals. As a teenager, entering the world of music and creation through the door that punk tore open, I finally found my people in Olympia. I lived there for 5 years and released records as the Microphones with the K label. Now I make Mount Eerie records, since 2003, and release them myself on a fake record label, stubbornly still DIY to the bone. I have a devotion to this life of creativity and subversion that has never wavered. These songs and works dig down into the bedrock of this place and try to bring forth a fresh exhale, a big picture glimpse, small beneath the sky, clear water trickling.

Visionary art pop musician Angel Deradoorian has signed to ANTI- Records and released her first album with the label. Titled Find The Sun, the celestial ten-track record is available now. Inspired by the freedom of Can and the singing style of Damo Suzuki as well as the influence of Indian spirituality on free jazz masters like Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra, Deradoorian gravitates to transportive, shamanic sounds on this record, wielding bells, flutes, and gongs in service of a rock record guided by the spirits.

“Overall, a lot of these songs are about trying to reach yourself – how to be your most brilliant self,” Deradoorian says. “…because we come from a culture that doesn’t actually support this. We are so deeply programmed to obey societal boundaries that we don’t even know the power we contain within.”