Last year, Phil Elverum brought back The Microphones for the first time in 17 years, with the aptly titled Microphones In 2020. But Elverum kind of trolled us all by making the album one 44-minute song, encompassing his personal life and his years under the Microphones moniker. In a press release, he said, “The song doesn’t seem to end. That’s the point.” Well, Elverum is back in 2021 with a new Microphones release—and it’s, um, an interesting one.
It’s called Foghorn Tape. The title is meant to be taken at face value: It is “literally just the noisy fuzzed out tape loop of a ‘fog horn’ (actually a distant pitch-bent bass) that plays throughout the background of The Glow Pt. 2 and other Microphones musics,” according to its press release. In case it isn’t clear, the press release puts it simply: “100% background noise, contains no music.” So don’t get too excited about having a new Microphones LP this year.
Foghorn Tape is coming out on March 5 on cassette and vinyl. There are only 999 copies available, so if you really love Elverum and want to impress your vinyl-snob friends with a rare record that’s not even real music, you can order it now.