Dionyso and Elverum's music, recorded in 2014, matured over a decade, creating depth akin to fermented tea. For Elverum, this is the first work post his wife Geneviève's death in 2016, marked by an absence of her influence. The music explores deeper spiritual truths, departing from earlier views on life and death. The title GIANT OPENING MOUTH ON THE GROUND signifies an intended grandeur. Elverum casually releases the music, embracing authenticity over commercial appeal, indicating a reconciliation with his previous artistic self.
For Elverum fans, the distance is crucial for another reason: This is the first music he's released since the passing of his wife, Geneviève, in 2016, that is not informed, either explicitly or implicitly, by her death.
GIANT OPENING MOUTH ON THE GROUND, meanwhile, roots unapologetically in the dirt like a truffling pig for the greater spiritual truth that has so many names in Elverum's work: the Glow, the Gleam, the lone bell echoing in the hills, the second lake that has never been seen.
If the choice to bestow such a grandiose moniker upon a collection of tracks that take as long to listen to as they did to record doesn't make clear the disproportionately exalted intent behind this music's creation, the play-by-play on Elverum's increasingly essential Substack should.
It feels like an acknowledgement of a truce with his younger and more credulous self that Elverum would release this music so casually, on his own label, with so little apprehension beyond his frank acknowledgment that this isn't something people who learned 'You'll Be in the Air' on ukulele would necessarily want to pair with their morning coffee.
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