The Microphones - Live in Japan, February 19th, 21st, and 22nd, 2003

Recorded over the course of three separate days in Japan in February 2003, this isn't your typical live album rehashing familiar studio material. The songs were all new at the time they were performed, and indeed were reported to be but a sampling of new songs presented by Microphones singer/songwriter Phil Elvrum during the two-week tour, composed after spending five isolated months in Norway. Remember how haunted Neil Young sounded when he sang "Cowgirl in the Sand" alone, acoustically, on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's Four Way StreetNULL That's how Elvrum sounds here, particularly on the solo acoustic opener, "Great Ghosts," though he's a little wackier and more unstable, as if the strangest solo Neil Young had been imbued with a little of the spirit of Jandek. Read More