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.

So don’t be a jerk, go buy it tomorrow. I’m for serious. I’ll be purchasing it, making good on my word back when the album(s) leaked. Also, for next Tuesday, go vote. It’s your civic duty. And lest we forget that in four Tuesdays, you need to pick up the new GnR concept album about riding bikes and how rad Times New Roman font is, as well as the subsequent free can of Doc Pepper. I’m getting two free Dr. Peppers since I agreed to braid Axl’s hair next time he’s in town. Snarf. So there, your Tuesdays are booked, bro. KTHNXBYE!

MP3 :::
Deerhunter – VHS Dream

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?

I think it’s awesome – it’s like Belle and Sebastian gone metal. And as you might note on my FaCeBoOk, “skulls” are one of my many refined interests, so obviously I support all album covers that prominently feature skulls and various dome relics.

M/WEC is out everywhere in all formats, and wants to be in your library, on October 28, thanks to Kranky in the U.S. and 4AD in the UK.

MP3 :::
Deerhunter – Focus Group

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…

“Intro” (1:21) – I was hoping for a fun sketch or the like – ya know, somethin’ similar to the opener “Recognize” off of Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Nigga Please. But no, this intro serves as a prophecy that Microcastle might be… egad, indie pop (as Fluorescent Grey was sorta suggesting). I hope not. There are pretty cool, fleeting, subterranean samples floating in and out of this instrumental though, so maybe we’re in the green.

“Agorphobia” (3:22) – The song begins with a Terror Twilight vibe. Catchy, decidedly sloppy, and vastly different than Cryptograms. This is Microcastle’s “Strange Lights.” BC wasn’t kidding about the whole “I wanna play around with pop hooks” nonsense he was writing on the Deerhuntertheband dot Blogspot dot com biz.

“Never Stops” (3:04) – Probably the most familiar song to people who, for whatever reason, spend time reading music blogs. Great pop melodies again. Luckily, what keeps this from being bumped at prom is the very distorted, distant guitars that sound like they were recorded from an AM broadcast then overdubbed. Very cool tone, and it keeps the track disorienting.

“Little Kids” (4:22) – All doubt about Microcastle was just crushed. “Little Kids” is utterly celestial. Pure, unadulterated, radiating joy. My favorite songs tend to start simplistically and all pianissimo, then rise in emotion (and guitar tracks) to the point of critical mass and fucking explode. This song begins as a tremolo-saturated, cutesy, high octave guitar riff not out of place on Siamese Dream. BC comes in with increasingly harmonic vocals, panning in and out of the headphone tech. Then at 1:47, low-rumbing fuzz guitars come in heavy and we’re all in big trouble. The band is exponentially growing like that plant in Little Shop of Horrors. Unequivocally, beautifully bombastic.

Look, it’s like this:
Gustav Mahler’s Seventh Symphony in, I believe, the third movement ends with a quintuple fortissimo crescendo (fffff) – horrendously loud. And that’s pussy shit to Deerhunter.

At 3:36, Bradford and Friends are clipping the shit out of their soundboard, because they can. Nothing but white noise – so loud that it doesn’t exist. “Little Kids” is the best shoegazing song that is not actually shoegazing I’ve ever heard. I’m smitten with the shitton of tambourine, too. Gonna listen to this again.

“Little Kids” (4:22) – My volume knob is now at the 4 o’ clock position, ready for “Little Kids” to provoke collateral damage again. This is going to hurt.

“Little Kids” (4:22) – I have that same feeling I had when I heard Animal Collective’s Strawberry Jam insofar as thinking “yeah, this is decent enough.” Then “Winter Winter Wonderland” came on and my brain turned into a cottoball. The timbre of the shimmering vocals, along with the frighteningly fluctuating bass line, is retardedly enchanting and gorgeous. But this song is also so brutal that I feel dirty, and the shower won’t wash it off. Don’t trip over the shattered guitar chords strewn about the room. Hitting the back button again.

“Little Kids” (4:22) – “To get older still, to get oooolduhhh stillllllll”

“Little Kids” (4:22) – FUUUUuuuucccck

“Little Kids” (4:22) – Hyp. Notic.

“Little Kids” (4:22) –

“Little Kids” (4:22) – I need to move on or I’ll never finish this.

“Microcastle” (3:40) – The title track brings you back down and provides the sharpest turn in the album yet. Sparse guitar chords, reverberated vocals, and not much else. The song evokes a slow ’60s ballad feeling for the vast majority of the movement. Then a sudden, quick distortion burst that Mogwai would do just to fuck with you.

“Calvary Scars” (1:37) – This is not an interlude. Clearly drawing a line in the sand between this album and the sophomore effort again, whereas Cryptograms would’ve taken this chance to do some drone examinations and zone-out time, “Calvary Scars” is a fully sweeping song replete with Spanish guitar, bells, piano, and phased vocals. Kinda folky. Kinda elegiac. Kinda awesome.

“Activa” (1:49) – Seamlessly continuing the mood from “Calvary Scars,” “Activa” takes full advantage of the space available around it. Super haunting, like “A Ghost Story” from the Atlas Sound record.

“Nothing Ever Happened” (5:50) – Second best track on the album. Mid-tempo, cosmic, triumphant kraut rock groove with an almost psych-punk punch straight outta 1992. The guitar fuzz is so enveloping, I feel like I’m listening to fleece. Was that simile stupid? Regardless, Bradford Cox is slaying me with the mechanical, calculated, trenchant bridge. Transient.

If Lightning Bolt were a pop band with vocals, they would sound like this song, at least in tone and crazed composition. The closing 2/3 of the song is so focused, bouncy and driving that it makes your eyes dart. It’s one of the few times you’ll hear a psych-influenced garagey band really jam out, but with total restraint (sorta like moments on Murray Street) and absolutely NO aimless an/or stupid guitar noodling. Comparing this to Can would be a stretch, but there’s some old lore that suggests that Can, when performing live, could focus their energy and precision so sharply that audience members would actually vomit. Supposedly this is true, and this song proves that Deerhunter also has this power.

“Saved By Old Times” (3:30) – Blues? Really? Well, not really blues. But a swingin’ guitar riff dominates this song’s initial sonic milieu. Coupled with reverb-soaked vocals, fans of The Tower Recordings and MV & EE will be stoked. The track takes a well-executed, feathered change in direction as the band returns to the repetitive guitar noddling and krautish driving rhythm that defines Fluorescent Gray’s title track.

“Neither of Us, Uncertainly” (5:25) – Despite the ominous structure, BC’s still comin’ correct on this whole ’60s vocal pop thing that, I think, gives Microcastle a very, very unusual sound.

“Twilight at Carbon Lake” (4:24) – This is the most traditionally “psychedelic rock” sounding song on the album, with all the normal fixins in tow – reversed loops, rapid-fader effect-laden vocals. Flood gates are opened and Gabriel sounds his trumpet at just the right now. The kickdrum and snare hit brutally in unison, rides crash, and Big Muff gain is ridin’ high. This is the sound The Helio Sequence has been trying to score for a long time. A better version of the title track, “Twilight at Carbon Lake” is a lovely little apocalyptic ending to an album that isn’t as much of a joyride as it is a journey.

Overall, this is a better album than Cryptograms, which I was not expecting despite being a huge Deerhunter fan. In many ways, it’s more accessible, as there’s a more defined pop-focus throughout. But in other ways, it’s not as accessible. You can turn on Cryptograms and sink in your comfy chair and let time pass. Microcastle creaks and twists, turns sharply almost every other song, and runs a serious exercise in experiments between soft and loud. It’s a fuckin’ shapeshifter. Microcastle progressively becomes a more remarkable album, as well. While the first three songs sound like a weirded-up indie rock band, “Little Kids” violently thrusts Microcastle into the Van Allen Belt. The results are sick.

Coming next time — Weird Era Cont. review, which won’t be in real time. But I am currently listening to it. It, too, is pretty phenomenal. More on that later. Protip: Weird Era Cont. is not the ying to Microcastle’s yang. Both are equally pop, equally experimental, and completely complementary, though Deerhunter will play with genres on Weird Era Cont. like you play with Legos. Look for that tomorrow or so.

This is only the third time in this calendar year that an album burned by temporal lobe to the ground. The first was when I finally gripped the Left Banke anthology and when I was subjected to the Cloudland Canyon jam hive.

Fagen-Becker Rating for Psychedelic Quality:

MP3 :::
Deerhunter – Little Kids
Deerhunter – Nothing Ever Happened

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.

This is not nice stuff to hear from one of the few new bands that doesn’t suck:

“It’s stuff like this that made Jeff Mangum stop Neutral Milk Hotel.”

“If you have no respect for my privacy I will no longer be giving music away on this blog… The biggest irony is that those who distribute my demos and unreleased material are stealing from me when I was trying to give away something else for free.”

“I have no idea what people want me to do. I’m not trying to be a cunt to anyone. I will finish the fucking album and stop bitching. I honestly really truly do not want attention from this. Sincerely. I wish none of this shit would have happened. I was just trying to give away another virtual 7″. Now everyone that reads this thing is going to think i’m a fucking lunatic. I just have nothing to do. I guess I’ll go clean my room.”

One of the “discovered” files was a surprise second album to be released with Microcastle called Weird Era Cont. – theorized, for obvious reasons, to be the more noise-oriented, old school Deerhunter response to all of the seemingly poppy new songs. That idea was pretty much stymied. However, most egregious was the leaking of unfinished demos. Something that people who aren’t, or haven’t been, in bands before don’t often understand is that there’s nothing more violating than seeing an unfinished product being heard outside the band and their circle of trust. Though rabid fans will like just about anything you do, no artist wants anyone to hear something that he or she isn’t 100% satisfied with. That’s a cardinal principle. So yeah, I don’t think you’re a lunatic, BC. I think you’re completely justified in being livid.

Stereogum is bringin’ the hate on BC, which I don’t understand. He’s an artist who embraces the Internet fully, constantly giving fans the jump on new material, talks with everyone all entertaining-style on his consistently interesting blog, makes public disses on the Vampire Weekend assclowns just how I like, and always gives you fun interviews to read. The man was trying to post his new 7″ as a convenient download – totally swell thing to do (as he mentioned above)! And this is what he got! Though it was his mistake, I just don’t find this to be an overreaction, especially considering that Bradford (and company) was cool enough to include a free surprise for everyone who purchased Microcastle in lieu of the leak, and not to mention the band’s general generosity toward giving away free jams. This was their property. And you, Gumguys, have the audacity to make fun of him? I know that you have this nice little concluding paragraph saying “all right guys, cut it out,” but anyone with a little perception can see you mocking him, trying to cutely analyze this as an exercise in the five stages of acceptance. And then you re-published his emotionally-based replies to sensationalize the article and make him look like he was acting unreasonable when he wasn’t. Fuck you, Stereogum. Go wank to the new Bloc Party cut or whatever. Mouthbreathers, the lot of ya. I hate music blogs.

Sorry to be all dad-like and call you kids out on your bullshit. Whatever. I’m gonna clean my room, too.

One quick note. The “secret” album, in some ways, wasn’t super secret, as you can see the title in the bottom right-hand corner of the cover art. Regardless, what they were at least aiming to do was pretty rad. Though nothing is as it seems with Deerhunter, so maybe this whole thing was orchestrated all along (but I doubt that):

Yep, thar it is!

UPDATE! ACHTUNG! Looks like D-Hunter’s taking the high road, mixin’ up some lemonade, saying “fuck it,” and is offering the entire Microcastle album for download on iTunes.

Alright… and finally, worth quoting more than the ol’ blog issue is Bradford’s very astute assessments on the My Bloody Valentine assault that is set to occur here in Chicago in… lemme check… one month and eight days. Total damage. Judging solely on the thoughts he publishes and the music he digs, I think I like Bradford. Seems like my kind of dude.

1. Debbie Googe is a badass.

2. Is the cathartic noise-burst at the end (which you’ve all probably read or heard about or perhaps even experienced firsthand) really cathartic since we all know its coming. Does this reduce its impact?

3. My Bloody Valentine are a folk band. Their music transfers experience in broad, ambiguous terms utilizing simple chords and melodies.

4. The sound guy (who also does sound for Mogwai) deserves some kind of huge reward for being a brilliant sonic architect.

5. This is not a point of debate but an observation: During the final 20 minute nihilist noise assault I went from excited to tense to happy to sort of depressed to feeling ill to feeling absolutely nothing. It is the closest I have come to complete meditation or a hypnotic state in a long time. I actually did not think at all for about five minutes.

6. Moses noted that “Belinda had the same facial expression when she was staring at the ground playing guitar that a elementary school teacher has when operating a photocopier.”

7. Whitney who has never heard of MBV and was dragged to the show by the rest of us looked up to me at one point and silently mouthed the words “what the fuuuuuck” to me. She also smiled a lot before her fucking face melted off.

MP3 :::
Deerhunter – Never Stops
Deerhunter – Neither of Us, Uncertainly
(Neither song is from this weekend’s leaks, and you will respectfully NOT find any of that here)

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.

10/31 Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
11/01 Asheville, NC – Orange Peel
11/02 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
11/03 Baltimore, MD – Ottobar
11/04 Washington, DC – Black Cat
11/05 Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church
11/06 Princeton, NJ – Terrace F. Club
11/07 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
11/08 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
11/10 Boston, MA – Paradise
11/11 Montreal, Quebec – Theatre Plaza
11/12 Toronto, Ontario – Lee’s Palace
11/13 Pontiac, MI – Crofoot Ballroom
11/14 Cleveland Heights, OH – Grog Shop
11/15 Chicago, IL – Metro
11/16 Madison, WI – High Noon Saloon
11/17 Minneapolis, MN – Triple Rock Social Club
11/20 Vancouver, British Columbia – Richard’s on Richards
11/21 Seattle, WA – Neumos
11/22 Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theater
11/24 San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
11/25 Los Angeles, CA – El Rey Theatre
11/28 San Diego, CA – Casbah
11/29 Phoenix, AZ – Modified Arts
12/01 Dallas, TX – Palladium Loft
12/02 Austin, TX – Emo’s Alternative Lounge Outside
12/03 Houston, TX – Warehouse Live
12/04 Baton Rouge, LA – Spanish Moon
12/05 New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jacks
12/06 Birmingham, AL – Bottletree

Oh, and if you haven’t seen this, it’s new to you! The cover art for Microcastle. Sick early ’90s font:

MP3 :::
Deerhunter – Never Stops

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