Now Only

Phil Elverum’s 2017 album as Mount Eerie (A Crow Looked at Me) broke new ground for confessionalism, detailing the sickness and death of his wife, Geneviève, with a directness and specificity that felt at once heartbreaking and borderline artless—the chaos of real life, arranged in simple folk song. Now Only dips further into Elverum’s stream of consciousness, reflecting on everything from Jack Kerouac and the weight of paternity (“Distortion”) to an evening on Skrillex’s tour bus (“Now Only”),and the triangulation of grief through art (“Two Paintings by Nikolai Astrup”).