Don’t Wake Me Up can be defined with one word: Static. It’s the kind of music that comes through when you’re fumbling through the stations on your car radio in the middle of a midnight thunderstorm joyride. Some of the songs even include demented and warped versions of what sound like radio commercials. The patchwork of textures that Phil Elverum uses here is the culmination of all the lo-fi doodling that was done on his first set of releases as The Microphones. With some added cohesiveness and some much-needed song structure, Phil and company made a more than competent album. It is an album less about the hits and more about the place you find yourself in as you listen. Just close your eyes and imagine you’re in rainy Washington with some awesome neo-hippies and some dude from an island.
Although the songwriting and lyrical content is far behind what he would do in the future, this album has a ramshackle magnetism that rarely shows itself in Phil’s other studio albums. I Felt You ends with the ambience of what I can assume is the traffic outside Dub Narcotic Studio. More than any album The Microphones would produce, this is the one where they sound more like a full band and less like Phil Elverum’s mind projections. The higher pitched vocals that are usually relegated to backing are front and center on some tracks. The crushing weight of the world that is evoked by the heavy and deep guitar tones is relieved by these vocals, and gives some company in the washed out isolation.