Philip Whitman Elverum (né Elvrum;[1] born May 26, 1978)[2] is an American musician, best known for his musical projects the Microphones and Mount Eerie.

[5] During his time there, he met Beat Happening member Bret Lunsford who offered him a job as the drummer of the band D+ alongside Karl Blau.

[8] Elverum described his time at The Business as his "entry point to alternative music", noting how it helped him become immersed in the scene.

[6] Also during his adolescence, Elverum expressed a desire to become a filmmaker, frequently making movies with his friends and screening them at a coffee shop.

[11] In his free time, Elverum would record music across the street at Dub Narcotic Studio and volunteer at the local food co-op.

[5] They originally intended to move to Canada, but after searching for residency decided to remain in the United States, in the town of Anacortes, where both Castrée and Elverum would become influential in the local music scene, in particular the forming of the What The Heck festival.

Elverum & Sun, Ltd.,[27] through which he has released records by Mount Eerie and The Microphones, as well as The Spectacle, Thanksgiving, Woelv, Nicholas Krgovich, Key Losers and Wyrd Visions.

Prior to this, he was closely linked to K Records, working with artists like Mirah, Kyle Field, Karl Blau, Calvin Johnson and The Blow.

[3] His musical influences include Eric's Trip, Will Oldham, Björk, Nirvana, Popol Vuh, Sunn O))), Angelo Badalamenti, Tori Amos, The Cranberries, Sinéad O'Connor, Red House Painters, Sonic Youth, This Mortal Coil and Stereolab.

A self-described fan of Eric's Trip, he has called Julie Doiron his favourite singer and stated that meeting and playing shows with her[33] "was a dream come true.

[34] In the song "Microphones in 2020", he described seeing Stereolab perform "one chord for fifteen minutes" in a show at Bellingham, Washington, and stating that "something in me shifted" and that "I brought home belief that I could create eternity.

"[38] Under both Mount Eerie and The Microphones, Elverum has recorded multiple versions of and sequels to his songs, such as demos or auto-tuned re-recordings and condensed albums.

[43] According to Elverum, nature within his work is "just the version of the world that I use to represent a neutral, non-human place where we're living out our weird adventures.

"[44] After meeting her, he became more withdrawn and intentionally chose not to discuss their relationship, until Mount Eerie's 2017 album A Crow Looked at Me, which is centered around her death.

Lyrically, he focuses on memory, first-person storytelling, myth, naturalism, the everyday as sacred, and sense of place (in and out of Washington state)".

[54] Slate described it as "fairly subdued yet intense and solipsistic, with a kind of American transcendentalist aesthetic (Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman) combined with a distinctly Pacific Northwest naturalist mysticism.

"[55] Todd Van Luling of HuffPost noted that despite Elverum's "noise experimentation", "the cores of the songs are still straightforwardly affecting.

Rachel Laitman wrote: "The effectiveness of Elverum’s style reminds us about the injury, and profound misunderstanding, incurred when we put the form of expression called singing in a box.

"[57] Isabel Zacharias claimed that Elverum, "to a pocket of Pacific Northwesterners, is more folkloric deity than musician" with his releases under The Microphones propelling him to "indie-god status".

The exhibition consisted of landscapes Elverum photographed in Norway, France, and rural Washington, using antique cameras and expired film.

[65] In 2005, he created a 365-day comic calendar titled Fancy People Adventures, which was later syndicated by music website Tiny Mix Tapes.

[67] Elverum has also experimented with filmmaking, producing background visuals for his shows (released as a limited-edition DVD entitled Fog Movies) and promotional videos for several Mount Eerie songs.