Please note, this is a seated show. Seating will be available on a first come, first served basis.

About Mount Eerie

Phil Elverum’s evolution as a songwriter has hinged on a balance of boundlessness and intimacy. As Mount Eerie, and prior to 2004 as The Microphones, he has pioneered a distinct form of existential music that feels entirely homegrown. While each album has been unique in sound and approach, they all grapple with big questions in ways that are human and relatable. Death and conceptions of self are recurring themes, presented in direct and oblique ways. Over the course of two decades he has developed an international following almost completely divorced from the larger music industry, releasing and recording his own albums, and booking his own tours. Few songwriters can match the depth of both thought and emotion that Elverum puts into his work.

The death of his wife, Geneviève Castrée, in 2016 from cancer marked a monumental shift in his life and his music. In the months after her death, in the throes of grief and learning how to be a single parent to their young daughter, Elverum wrote and recorded A Crow Looked At Me, a devastating and raw expression of loss. “Death is real,” he sang into a microphone, and then to audiences around the world. The album became Elverum’s most acclaimed work, with the New York Times calling it “the work of an elegant songwriter knowing just how to render devastation,” and Pitchfork saying it “forc[es] the listener into the kind of magical thinking that transforms everything in the living world into a sign of the dead, only to snap back into a reality that for better and worse means nothing.” The intimacy implied by Elverum’s earlier work became the music’s overwhelming quality, with the words being sung creating a direct line between the listener and Elverum’s grief, presented clearly and unencumbered by flair.

Now Only, written shortly following the release of A Crow Looked At Me and the first live performances of those songs, is a deeper exploration of that style of candid, undisguised lyrical writing. It portrays Elverum’s continuing immersion in the strange reality of Geneviève’s death, chronicling the evolution of his relationship to her and her memory, and of the effect the artistic exploration of his grief has had on his own life. The scope of Now Only encompasses not only hospitals and deathbeds, but also a music festival, childhood memories of conversations with Elverum’s mother, profound paintings and affecting artworks he encounters, a documentary about Jack Kerouac, and most significantly, memories of his life with Geneviève. These moments and thoughts resonate with each other, creating a more complex and nuanced picture of mourning and healing. The power of these songs comes not from the small, sharp moments of cutting phrases or shocks, but the echoes that weave the songs together, the way a life is woven.

The music, fully realized by Elverum alone at home, is fleshed out texturally and seems to react to the words in real time. In a moment of confusion, dissonance abruptly makes itself known; in a moment of clarity, gentle piano arises. On the title track, the blunt declaration of “people get cancer and die” is subverted by a melody that can only be described as pop. As Elverum reinvents his lyrical process, he is also refining his musical vocabulary.

Elverum’s life during the period he wrote Now Only was defined by the duality of existing with the praise and attention garnered by A Crow Looked At Me and the difficult reality of maintaining a house with a small child by himself, as well as working to preserve Geneviève’s artistic legacy. Consumed with the day to day of raising his daughter, Elverum felt his musical self was so distant that it seemed fictional. Stepping into the role of Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie held the promise of positive empathy and praise, but also the difficulty of inhabiting the intense grief that produced the music. These moments, both public and domestic, are chronicled in these songs. They are songs of remembrance, and songs about the idea of remembrance, about living on the cusp of the past and present and reluctantly witnessing a beloved person’s history take shape. Time continues.

Two important events occurred during the making of White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood. I became “Simulated Reality” paranoid and I fell in LOVE.

Well a lot more happened during the process of writing and recording, but those are the two big ones. I also reached a healthy point of self-forgiveness for my failed marriage and became deeply educated in the lies of America the Great.

I feel like a switch was recently turned on in my brain and now I’m beginning to see through the lies that have been fed to me my whole life by the masters of media and by those who control and manipulate the narrative of our cultural identity and social order.

My paranoia began during the presidential election cycle and reached a dangerous peak shortly after the inauguration. In the meantime I watched and read countless works of art in a mad effort to be reminded of how many truly brilliant people there are living/struggling among us and to try to maintain a positive outlook. The works of Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, Chris Kraus, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the Autobiographies of Malcolm X and Mark E Smith were all great inspirations, to name a few.

Musically, I was very inspired by the extended dance mixes that people used to make for pop singles back in the ‘80s. It’s so cool how a lot of the 80’s hits had these really intricate and interesting longer versions that wouldn’t get played on the radio and could only be heard in the clubs. I used that template with these tracks, I wanted them all to feel like the extended “club edit” of album tracks.

I also decided to abandon the “live band in a room” approach that I had been using on the recent albums and work more on my own or remotely with collaborators. I used the same drum sample packs throughout because I wanted the album to have a rhythmic continuity to it. I wanted the drums to have a strong and consistent identity, similar to how Prince’s Linn Electronics LM-1 drum machine played such an important role on his classic albums. Zac Colwell also played a huge role on this album, adding saxophones and synths to most of the songs. I also got a lot of help from long time collaborators, and “of Montreal” touring members, Clayton Rychlik and JoJo Glidewell.

The two title concept came to me when I was thinking about how difficult it is to frame the message of a song with just one title, because so often the songs are about so many different subjects. ‘White Is Relic’ was inspired by James Baldwin’s writings regarding the creation and propagation of a toxic American White identity. I’ve come to learn how it’s just a tool wielded by the 1% to give poor white people a false sense of superiority in an effort to keep the masses placated and numb to how deeply we’re all getting fucked by our capitalist rulers. An ‘Irrealis Mood’ is a linguistic indicator that something isn’t yet reality but does have the potential to become so.

I’m always searching for new identities so this concept of the death of “Whiteness” appeals to me greatly. Might be the only way to save the world.

-Kevin Barnes, January 2018

#1 Billboard star and homegrown rapper Cardi B graces the stage at Knockdown Center this New Year’s Eve. Tickets will not last!

Come early for complimentary passed hors d’oevres, and enjoy a free champagne toast at midnight.

VIP ticket holders can enjoy a express entry, a champagne open-bar from 9pm – 12am, and special section or get your friends in on thee VIP Bottle Service package.

It’s not all about New Year’s Eve! Keep the party going with this New Year’s Day party at Knockdown Center. Brooklyn-born producer and DJ Victor Calderone crosses the border into Queens to ring in 2018.

About Victor Calderone
The words “world-renowned” and “influential” get thrown around all too often these days, to the point of almost becoming cliché. While few artists actually measure up, all it takes is one look at Victor Calderone’s 20+year track record and the facts speak for themselves. From past collaborations with some of the biggest names in pop like Madonna, Sting and Beyoncé Knowles, to more recent collaborations with the likes of Adam Beyer, Richie Hawtin, Nicole Moudaber and Paco Osuna, Victor’s constantly evolving approach and contributions to the worlds of house and techno music has earned him a place firmly at the top among the world’s most prolific DJs and producers.

Introduced to New York nightlife at only 15 years of age by his older brother Cesar, Victor quickly developed an intense passion for dance music that would form the foundation for the Brooklyn native’s remarkable career. While his accomplishments as a remixer, producer and DJ are well known among those in the scene, Victor understands and appreciates the importance of continually evolving. He has reinvented his musical style and now treats listeners to an edgier darker sound.