MOUNT EERIE
Phil Elverum opens A Crow Looked at Me with a clarification. The death of his wife, visual artist and musician Geneviève Castrée, should not be reduced to the inspiration for a set of songs. Nor is it a learning experience, a clarifying opportunity to understand what’s really important in life. “Death is real/Someone’s there and then they’re not,” he sings over solitary electric guitar strums on album-opener “Real Death.” “And it’s not for singing about/It’s not for making into art.” Death—the real thing—isn’t beautiful or poetic. It’s just pure, unmitigated loss. But if they aren’t art, how do we classify
