Sauna opens with a very deliberate establishing shot of the scene: the warm hiss of analog, followed by Phil Elverum breathing into a small fire. As an artistic metaphor, this almost too on the nose, too obvious of a statement on the invoking of a muse. But while it would be foolhardy to discount the symbolism of this album’s opening, its intent is actually quite literal. The press release of Mount Eerie’s Sauna describes the album as being inspired by “a small man-made wooden room crushed beneath a universe’s worth of bad weather,” and presumably, the entirety of the album takes place within this small room. Elverum’s strictly analog recording methods places the listener in that room with him, where we stay for the hour-long run time of Sauna.
Listening to Sauna, I’m reminded, likely not accidentally, of the practice of sweat lodges that Indigenous North Americans would often employ for inspiration. These lodges were small enclosed huts with no ventilation. Fires would be lit inside, and warriors and healers would bask in the suffocating heat, breathing in harsh smoke until they were blessed with visions. Sauna’s vivid hallucenogic state verges between suffocation induced psychosis and dreamy meditation, the drones shaped with textures that paralyze and soothe, often within the same song. Elverum has always had a bit of a thing for black metal, a kink that was explored fully on the last official Mount Eerie release of new material, Ocean Roar. Black etal’s feedback squalls and crashing drums turn up occasionally throughout Sauna, but this album’s appropriation of the genre seems more interested in the tertiary aspects of black metal, ie. its inherent connection to the elemental forces of nature circa Wolves in the Throneroom, or its penchant for unusual timbres.
The most satisfying aspect of Elverum’s output, whether as Mount Eerie or as the Microphones, has always been the way Elverum’s soft voice grounds the music, regardless of how feral it may become. This results in a mutual subversion, the heavy parts always tinged with tenderness and the soothing sections carrying and air of uneasiness. While predecessors Clear Moon and Ocean Roar may have been more successful in terms of songwriting, Sauna perfectly encapsulates what I would call the “Phil Elverum Tone;” blurring together the light and the dark until there’s no difference between the two anymore. In this sauna, the flicker of the flames and the shadows they cast are one and the same.
Elverum’s been a pretty prolific guy. It’s difficult to pin an exact number down, but Sauna is something like his 16th or 17th full length album. Coming on the heels of a double record, its easy to understand how inspiration may be difficult to come by, especially when most of your albums to date all revolve around pretty similar themes. But there’s a reason why Elverum is the cult figure he is today: the man is a genius, and he rarely lets down. To make this Sauna, Elverum created this imaginary sauna for inspiration, and he invites us to join him inside of it.
Subsequently, Sauna becomes a meta-record of sorts, as much about what inspired its themes as the themes itself. While billed as a ‘fantasy record’, Elverum approaches real life with a degree of verisimilitude that makes the ordinary seem profound in a humble way. There are songs about dragons, there are songs about vikings, there are songs about waking up and drinking coffee, all are approached with the same degree of calm introspection. Much like the titular sauna the album takes places in, the lines between symbolism and realism is blurred until it doesn’t matter anymore. Elverum’s Sauna’s purpose served him well, resulting in yet another massive artistic achievement in a long line of successes for the man. And with its purpose served, he passes the sauna onto us, a warm hole in the ground where we may escape from the cold world and reflect on the darkness and the light that inhabits it.
Ridiculous Made Up Genre of the Day: elemental indie
Rating: 4.5/5