A daily, usually vulgar, music blog focused on psychedelic, shoegazing, space rock, folk, post rock, hauntology, ambient/noise, and related genres.
Deerhunter played last week in my favorite city in the nation, San Francisco, at Noise Pop. Deerhunter’s entire performance is available above, which is exciting for me as Deerhunter is one of, like, maybe three new-ish bands that I care about and are 110% worth a damn. The show sounds real good, though it’s weird not hearing B. Cox’s voice liquified by swells of reverb.
Oh good, glad to see you like my illustration. Yeah, I had some downtime and wasn’t feelin’ too creative or too much in my graphic design game as far as doing something special for The Decibel Tolls year-end list. So Lana and I started talking, and it came to us that it would be hysterical to do a collage with people like Bradford Cox eating that Ezra Comma dude from Frankenstein Weekday or whoever, and Franz Ferdinand… stuff like that. I didn’t have time to add Lil’ Wayne. And then I had to make, like, the fuckin’ universe as the backdrop. That’s how we roll here at the Decibel Tolls – no fun, tasteful graphic to designate this article as the accumulative best-of list. Nope, just crude images of artists I like with their heads detached eating shitty bands. I’m additionally thrilled that I was able to describe the image even further despite the fact that it’s already annotated. I rule.
I put some serious thought into this list, and did a bunch of narrowin’ down. There were other jam hives I was rather infatuated with this year, such as releases from Magik Markers, Burning Star Core, and Vivian Girls. But I wanted to do just the standard top ten this time around. No reason to not do things standard every now and again… Continue reading ‘The Decibel Tolls Best Albums of 2008′
Tomorrow, Deerhunter’s monolithic double disc Microcastle/Weird Era Cont. drops courtesy of Kranky or 4AD, depending on where you live. Yes, it leaked, and we all greedily took. We all witnessed the Lord of the Flies-esque free-for-all, and the subsequent fallout from the blog debacle – in addition to the rueful behavior of the fallible, sinful collective of scalawags and pirates known as your peers and neighbors. And after the dust settled, we all found out that Deerhunter had recorded an incredible collection of music. Continue reading ‘Don’t Be a Jerk – Grip the New Deerhunter, For Real’
Like me with this site’s design and layout, Deerhunter likes to tweak and change and constantly alter the forthcoming Microcastle/Weird Era Cont cover. The original, found here, will still be displayed on the domestic Kranky vinyl release, though. There’s also this one floating around that appears as the proper art via iTunes. So… what do you think? Continue reading ‘So… Watcha Think of the New Deerhunter Art?’
This is the, what, third time I’ve referenced Sesame Street on this blog. I love Sesame Street. If I wasn’t a lame 9-to-5er, I would still watch it. So today’s news roundup is brought to you by the letter B – Boredoms, Benoit Pioulard, Boduf Songs, Bedhead, the /b/ board, baseball, booters, and the Bear Market Bailout. Botta bing!
Anyway, there are so many songs (11 MP3s to be exact), and so much content here, that I have no idea what to categorize this entry as. So consider this your News and Super Swingin’ Mix for the day. I’m not posting again today, this post is epic and I’m tired.
Let’s do this like Buddhists… Continue reading ‘News Roundup: Brought to You By the Letter “B”’
**For maximum effect, please read the opening paragraph with the inflection of a radio theater narrator circa 1955 or so**
When we last left our heroes, Kenny Bloggins and friends were destroying the paradigm of lame and old hat record reviews with a critique of Microcastle in real-time, before your very eyes. After careful consideration and a positive response from readers, the real-time review is back for another go with Weird Era Cont. Keep your dial locked to this station for keen adventure that can only be described as 23 skidoo! For you listening at home, feel free to follow our friends’ frolic on Last.fm. Continue reading ‘Deerhunter – Weird Era Cont. Review (In Real Time)’
Inspired by the Deerhunter blog debacle that unfurled before everyone’s eyes in real time last week, I’d like to review the new Deerhunter stereophonic delight Microcastle also in real time. Microcastle is available now on iTunes, and will be realized in the third dimension on October 28, courtesy of the smartest people alive – Kranky Records. Mashin’ play… Continue reading ‘Deerhunter – Microcastle Review (In Real Time)’
I’m going to bat for Bradford and pals. Deerhunter has been good to us. On their blog, bandleader Bradford Cox is pretty great about providing new songs and sneak peeks of forthcoming material. While posting a link to the new Atlas Sound single, via Mediafire, Bradford unwittingly provided a public portal to all of his uploaded material, including two not-yet-released albums, unfinished demos, and the famous Deerhunter “micromixes.” In essence, his diary was discovered. As you can imagine, a free-for-all ensued. Old dude made it over to the At Ease Message Boards and posted all the files. Do you think Captain Yorke and the boys would approve of this, brah?! I’m a blogger too and all, but I’m sorry guys, that was a bitch move on your part, indie dorks. For shame. Continue reading ‘I’m Sorry, Bradford Cox’
Deerhunter just released some more non-NIN shows coming up this fall. Bradford Cox is buying some new dresses for the occasion, too! By the way, BC has my heart, because he understands something that I understand, but very few others do. Quoted in Analogue Mag: “I’ve pretty much given up on indie rock. I hate indie rock. I never listen to it anymore. Because indie rock to me is safe. Like college rock in the 80s. It has a lot to do with economic oppression. It has a lot to do with rich kids. When I think of indie rock recently I think of sort of bands whose names I won’t mention appropriating African music.” Thank you, Brad. Thank you, Deerhunter. Continue reading ‘Deerhunter Tours Some More’
This leaked rather quickly. Microcastle doesn’t come out until October, but you can catch some of the tracks floating around the Internet if you act fast. You can also just enjoy the stream on Deerhunter’s MySpace. I’m sad they changed their profile around… right before Cryptograms came out, they posted all the bad press they’ve received up to that point on their “about me” section, which I thought was decidedly excellent.
Though I have mixed feelings about some of the songs, “These Hands” (not to be confused with The Guess Who’s equally righteous “These Eyes”) is everything you would ever want to hear on a Kranky release. LOTS OF TREMOLO, and in the universe that the Decibel Tolls occupies, tremolo is the key to success. It seems Deerhunter might be moving away, slightly, from the deluge of noise found on Cryptograms and Flourescent Grey, toning down the wigouts and bringing the vocals up to the front. However, Microcastle, thus far, still seems to preserve just enough of their renowned spaciness to keep things interstellar. The piano and drone coda of “These Hands” provokes the feeling of an excellent Boards of Canada segue or any given Ghost Box artist.
Though I’m totally stoked to see groups like Deerhunter, Animal Collective, and the like get their dues, I still find it peculiar that these relatively odd groups are getting so popular. Perhaps that’s the power of Pitchfork? Of course, I’m very glad that more people are listening to dronerific jams like Deerhunter, and would rather have our collective tastes pushed toward that end of the spectrum than toward borecore artists like Vampire Weekend. Maybe that’s just me. The world needs to be a stranger place, and Deerhunter is helping to make that happen.
Come see Bradford Cox in a dress at one of these fine shows. They’re supporting Nine Inch Nails for most of these dates, which is totally weird:
07/31 Charleston, SC: The Map Room
08/01 Norfolk, VA: The Boot
08/05 Toronto, ON: Air Canada Centre
08/06 Buffalo, NY: Big Orbit’s Soundlab
08/07 Uncasville, CT: Mohegan Sun Arena
08/08 Worchester, MA: DCU Center
08/10 Pittsburg, PA: Garfield Artworks
08/11 Morgantown, WV: 123 Pleasant Street
08/12 Knoxville, TN: Knoxville Civic Coliseum
08/13 Atlanta, GA: Gwinnett Arena
09/02 Morrison, CO: Red Rock Pavillion
09/03 Salt Lake City, UT: E Center
09/05 Oakland, CA: Oracle Arena
09/06 Inglewood, CA: The Forum
MP3 :::
Deerhunter – These Hands
