Bringing the recording studio to the bedroom is the highest tenet to stalwarts of the lo-fi movement. Usually this maneuver is out of necessity; only subsequently does the resourcefulness of bedroom 4-track recording become an aesthetic embraced as tantamount to the warmth and honesty only such intimacy can provide. So what happens when the studio is available, anytime, yet the artist discovers that the cozy asylum of a bedroom sound simply cannot be sacrificed?

Welcome to the half-awake world of The Microphones, where heavy-lidded experimental pop peeks through a dreamy fog in full analog stereo. The Microphones is the moniker for Phil Elvrum (drummer for the backwoods D+ and the primal scree of Old Time Relijun), a psychedelic one man project with a sound too big to be merely solo. A hodge-podge of tape-loop trickery, stereo panning, super fuzz bass, radio signals, acoustic pluckings, clamoring drums, tympani, xylophone, organ, distortion piano, string section keyboard, pure noise and warm bliss pop are the makings for one fine album, Don’t Wake Me Up. The Microphones emulate the unadulterated sounds of early (Freed Weed-era) Sebadoh, Eric’s Trip, Mountain Goats, Olivia Tremor Control and Alastair Galbraith, while stirring up the isolated sounds produced by New Zealand labels Xpressway and Flying Nun, as well as the vision of the Shrimper label…but those are merely reference points, especially since Mr. Elvrum has never heard anything produced by the aforementioned (well, maybe Love Tara by Eric’s Trip).

Combining the spontaneity of home recording with the polish of a vintage studio, Don’t Wake Me Up is a remarkable record, a proverbial diamond in the rough, defying easy categories, tossing slumber from the mind with a heady dreamscape album. Listen intently, there’s a lot of sounds going on in those songs… Recorded at Dub Narcotic Studios and The Business by Phil Elvrum.