Deerhunter | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Led by charismatic frontman Bradford Cox, Deerhunter emerged in the mid-2000s as a band uniquely capable of experimental forays and chiming, wistful pop. By turns confrontational and delicate -- and sometimes both at once -- the bands early output ranged from 2004s densely layered self-titled album to the heady excursions of 2007s Cryptograms. Deerhunters breakthrough came with the following years Microcastle, an album of lush, transporting guitar pop that earned them critical acclaim as well as their Billboard chart debut. Despite this success, the band continued to challenge themselves and their audience with albums including 2013s raw Monomania and 2019s fragile yet incisive Why Hasnt Everything Already Disappeared? Cox and drummer/keyboardist Moses Archuleta formed Deerhunter in Atlanta, Georgia in 2001, with bassist Justin Bosworth and Colin Mee joining the group soon after. The bands early work included a 2004 split single with Alphabets that was released by the local Die Slaughterhaus label. Not long after recording the single, Bosworth died from head injuries he sustained in a skateboarding accident; Josh Fauver, a member of the punk band Electrosleep, became Deerhunters next bassist. For their abrasive 2004 self-titled debut album -- also known as Turn It Up Faggot -- the band teamed with another local label, Stickfigure Records. Soon after the albums release, Deerhunter added guitarist Lockett Pundt (a longtime friend of Coxs) to the line-up. Pundts reverb-heavy guitar style, along with bells, keyboards, and tape loops, dominated the bands atmospheric second album Cryptograms. Recorded in two days in November 2005, it was released by Kranky in January 2007. The Fluorescent Grey EP, which added more structured songwriting to the Cryptograms sound, followed that May. During this time, Cox began his solo project Atlas Sound. Early in 2008, Deerhunter appeared on Living Bridge, a compilation of songs by bands who recorded at Brooklyns Rare Book Room studio. That April, they returned to the studio to cover the Jay Reatard song "Oh, Its Such a Shame" for a split single with him (in turn, Reatard covered the title track of Fluorescent Grey). Deerhunter also chose Rare Book Room to record Microcastle, an album of crisper, more concise songs. Because the album leaked online months before its scheduled street date, the band recorded another album, Weird Era, to be included with Microcastles official release. Though Weird Era also leaked ahead of schedule, Microcastle debuted at number 123 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart when it arrived in October 2008. Though Mee left the band after the albums release, Deerhunters prolific year continued with On Platts Eyott, a live session recorded during the Microcastle tour and released as a limited edition of 200 cassettes. More Microcastle-related music surfaced the following year in the form of the Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP, which featured songs written during the albums sessions, and Vox Celeste 5, which was part of the third edition of Sub Pops Singles Club. After touring in support of Microcastle ended, Deerhunter took a break. During the bands time off, Archuleta attended culinary school and Fauver concentrated on running his label Army of Bad Luck. The bands other two members turned their attention to their other musical projects: Pundt made his debut as Lotus Plaza in March 2009 with the album Floodlight Collective, while Coxs Atlas Sound released its second album, Logos, that October. The band reconvened in 2010 to record Halcyon Digest with producer Ben Allen. Released that September, the album featured some of the bands most impressionistic music in some time and reached number 37 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart. In 2012, Fauver left Deerhunter shortly before they prepared to make their fifth album. With Josh McKay stepping in on bass and guitarist Frankie Broyles joining the fold, the band returned to Rare Book Room to record 2013s raw, confrontational Monomania with producer Nicolas Vernhes. Following its release that May, the album peaked at number 41 on the Billboard 200. In December 2014, Cox was hit by a car and hospitalized for his injuries; once he recovered, Deerhunter continued work on their next album. Fading Frontier, which featured collaborations with Stereolabs Tim Gane and Broadcasts James Cargill, as well as a duet between Cox and Pundt, arrived in October 2015 and hit number 72 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart that November. After the band toured in support of the album, Deerhunter didnt resurface until 2018, when they played a string of dates in New York and Europe. Double Dream of Spring, a cassette of experimental tracks limited to 300 copies, sold out on the opening date of the tour. In November 2018, it was announced that former bassist Josh Fauver had died at age 39. In January 2019, Deerhunter released their eighth album, Why Hasnt Everything Already Disappeared? The bands first official album to feature keyboardist/saxophonist Javier Morales, it featured collaborations with Cate LeBon and Halcyon Digest producer Ben Allen. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 14 Title: Live Athens 2005 Released: 2005 Tracks: 2 Duration: 45:04 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Live in Athens Caledonia 8/27/05 (27:04) 2 Live in Athens at Tasty World 9/13/05 (excerpt) (18:00) |
 | Album: 2 of 14 Title: Carve Your Initials Into the Wall of the Night Released: 2005 Tracks: 10 Duration: 46:23 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Bright and Early (08:30) 2 Cicadas (03:56) 3 Rotation (08:04) 4 But, Im a Boy (06:53) 5 Three Dolphins Melting Into Orange Wax (04:19) 6 Snow Dogs (02:12) 7 Dogs Are Cool (03:40) 8 Homorobotic (03:53) 9 Cordless (02:04) 10 When I Taste Blood (02:52) |
 | Album: 3 of 14 Title: Unrequited Narcissist Released: 2005 Tracks: 10 Duration: 1:08:02 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Summer 1991 (02:35) 2 Fall 1992 (01:58) 3 Spring 1993 (08:09) 4 Winter 1994 (07:19) 5 Winter 1995 (07:04) 6 Fall 1996 (04:09) 7 Spring 1997 (09:59) 8 Fall 1998 (14:21) 9 Summer 1999 (08:18) 10 The Ballad Of Robert Piest (Winter 1978 Version) (04:10) |
 | Album: 4 of 14 Title: Turn It Up Faggot Released: 2005-01 Tracks: 9 Duration: 30:31 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 N. Animals (02:34) 2 Adorno (04:36) 3 Tech School (02:29) 4 Ponds (02:50) 5 Language/Violence (02:36) 6 Oceans (03:47) 7 Basement (02:59) 8 Young Layer (02:19) 9 Death Drag (06:18) |
 | Album: 5 of 14 Title: Fluorescent Grey Released: 2007-01-29 Tracks: 4 Duration: 16:16 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Fluorescent Grey (05:02) 2 Dr Glass (03:14) 3 Like New (02:13) 4 Wash Off (05:46) |
 | Album: 6 of 14 Title: Cryptograms Released: 2007-01-29 Tracks: 12 Duration: 48:21 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Intro (02:50) 2 Cryptograms (04:17) 3 White Ink (04:59) 4 Lake Somerset (03:49) 5 Providence (04:08) 6 Octet (07:50) 7 Red Ink (03:40) 8 Spring Hall Convert (04:29) 9 Strange Lights (03:38) 10 Hazel St. (03:48) 11 Tape Hiss Orchid (01:12) 12 Heatherwood (03:37) |
| Cryptograms : Allmusic album Review : Deerhunters first album, the self-titled release from Atlanta-based Stickfigure, was a cacophonous, messy, punk-driven record that banged and pulsated along in the shock and anger after bass player Justin Bosworths sudden death in 2004. By the time the band set about recording their second album, however, they had added another guitarist, one who focused more on twisting and mechanizing sound, and had calmed down considerably. Because of this, much of Cryptograms meanders about in the experimental realm, where swells and layers matter more than melody or structure. It does make for contrast, this ebb-and-flow against the greater discord of the sung pieces, but these instrumentals dont do enough to actually mean anything. From the "Intro" to "Red Ink" to "Providence" theres a kind of tired consistency played out in the delayed guitar that works to make the record almost commonplace, despite its avant-garde leanings. The more "conventional" tracks, those with words, decipherable or not (generally not), work a little better. More interesting and complex musically, they weave guitar and basslines with driving chords and heavy drums, the same energy before spent on reverb now given to rhythm and composition. Lyrics, courtesy of frontman Bradford Cox, are sparse but intentional, like the repeated muffled yell of "there was no sound" in the title cut, or the echoed call of "I was the corpse that spiraled out" in the nearly eight-minute long "Octet." Cryptograms is pained, sometimes angry, sometimes reflective (and once, in the out-of-place indie pop "Strange Lights," oddly content) music that aims for the provocative and the esoteric. Occasionally, like in the wonderfully spastic "Lake Somerset," Deerhunter successfully accomplish that, but more often than that they overreach and end up hitting something much more ordinary, predictably "experimental" choices in a genre thats supposed to be anything but. Yes, theres a greater recognition of the importance of maturity and structure and intellectualism here, but its overshadowed by a heightened sense of gravitas and a concern for the unconventional that ends up dulling whatever it is they may have created. | ||
 | Album: 7 of 14 Title: Daytrotter Session Released: 2007-11-19 Tracks: 5 Duration: 15:52 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Welcome to Daytrotter (00:04) 2 Heatherwood (03:47) 3 Dr. Glass (03:00) 4 Activa (04:40) 5 Calvary Scars (04:21) |
 | Album: 8 of 14 Title: Microcastle / Weird Era Cont. Released: 2008-10-27 Tracks: 25 Duration: 1:22:51 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Allmusic Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Cover Me (Slowly) (01:21) 2 Agoraphobia (03:22) 3 Never Stops (03:04) 4 Little Kids (04:22) 5 Microcastle (03:40) 6 Calvary Scars (01:37) 7 Green Jacket (02:09) 8 Activa (01:49) 9 Nothing Ever Happened (05:50) 10 Saved by Old Times (03:50) 11 Neither of Us, Uncertainly (05:25) 12 Twilight at Carbon Lake (04:24) 1 Backspace Century (02:19) 2 Operation (04:04) 3 Ghost Outfit (00:33) 4 Dot Gain (03:19) 5 Vox Celeste (03:34) 6 Cicadas (02:26) 7 Vox Humana (02:32) 8 VHS Dream (02:33) 9 Focus Group (02:48) 10 Slow Swords (03:25) 11 Weird Era (02:40) 12 Moon Witch Cartridge (01:31) 13 Calvary Scars II / Aux. Out (10:12) |
| Microcastle / Weird Era Cont. : Allmusic album Review : The narcotic drones and fragmented art punk Deerhunter explored on Cryptograms made the album a love-it-or-hate-it proposition for many indie rock fans; where some heard eclectic expansiveness, others heard incoherent experiments. Microcastle, the bands first album with guitarist Whitney Petty, brings together the disparate elements that made Cryptograms fascinating and frustrating, adding a little more pop and quite a bit more studio polish (this album was recorded in a week, as opposed to the two days it took to lay down Cryptograms). Deerhunter still change from gentle to storming at a moments notice, as on "Microcastle" itself, which drifts along like a slow-motion surf rock ballad, then catches fire about two-thirds of the way through, and the albums middle stretch of songs is just as lulling as Cryptograms opening suite, but a lot more melodic. These fever-dream moments are punctuated by pop songs that are as crystal clear as they are warped. The trippy innocence of 60s psych pop is a major influence on Microcastle, especially "Little Kids" jangly guitars and sparkling strangeness, and the acid pop flashback "Saved by Old Times," which is slinky and mischievous enough to be a spiritual cousin of Donovans "Season of the Witch." Bradford Cox and company get even more accessible on the bittersweet "Never Stops" and the excellent "Nothing Ever Happened," which lets zigzagging guitars and keyboards tussle over one of Microcastles most memorable melodies. Guitarist Lockett Pundts songs balance Coxs extremes, with "Neither of Us, Uncertainly" nodding to the albums hazier moments and "Agoraphobia" blending in with its crisper songs. When "Twilight at Carbon Lake" swells from a hallucinatory 50s slow dance ballad into a triumphant storm of guitars, Microcastle proves that Deerhunter can make music that sounds very different from what theyd done before, yet still feels of a piece with their body of work. [Microcastle was also released with Weird Era Continued, an album of bonus songs that plays like Microcastles mirror twin: tracks like "Vox Celeste" and "VHS Dream" put the angular pop first and experimental haze second. Taken as a whole, Microcastle/Weird Era Continued is an even richer, more ambitious, and more exciting listen than either part on its own.] | ||
 | Album: 9 of 14 Title: Rainwater Cassette Exchange Released: 2009-05-18 Tracks: 5 Duration: 15:21 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Rainwater Cassette Exchange (02:24) 2 Disappearing Ink (02:22) 3 Famous Last Words (02:15) 4 Game of Diamonds (03:14) 5 Circulation (05:04) |
 | Album: 10 of 14 Title: Halcyon Digest Released: 2010-09-22 Tracks: 11 Duration: 46:00 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Earthquake (05:00) 2 Don’t Cry (02:49) 3 Revival (02:13) 4 Sailing (05:00) 5 Memory Boy (02:09) 6 Desire Lines (06:44) 7 Basement Scene (03:41) 8 Helicopter (04:58) 9 Fountain Stairs (02:38) 10 Coronado (03:19) 11 He Would Have Laughed (07:29) |
| Halcyon Digest : Allmusic album Review : Inspired by the flyer culture of punk and college rock bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s, Deerhunter introduced Halcyon Digest with an “interactive Xerox art project” in which fans photocopied an old-school flyer made by Bradford Cox, pasted it around their towns, photographed it and sent the results back to the band. Besides being a clever viral strategy to drum up interest for the album, it speaks to the way Deerhunter approaches how fleeting and important memories can be on these songs. Given how prolific Cox and crew have been together -- and separately, with his Atlas Sound project and Lockett Pundts Lotus Plaza -- since 2007’s Cryptograms, it’s not surprising that they took this opportunity to look back. Halcyon Digest reveals a quieter, sometimes gentler Deerhunter than expected, and while Cox doesn’t exactly sound tired, there’s an occasional rasp in his voice that wasn’t there before. Instead of emphasizing sonics that spiral out into the stratosphere as they did on Microcastle or Rainwater Cassette Exchange, the band emphasizes the dream part of their dream-pop roots. Halcyon Digest gets off to a sleepy start with “Earthquake,” where sluggish beats, looping guitars and reminiscences of “waking up on a dirty couch” feel like being awoken from a dream, or maybe going deeper into one; “Sailing” is a reverie on a pier, so whispered and intimate that it sounds like it belongs on a Cox solo album. Despite its delicacy, Halcyon Digest is some of Deerhunters most down-to-earth music, and offers some of the band’s most thoughtful songwriting. Cox is more interested in playing with layers of nostalgia than layers of sound, expressing his yearning by channeling the music of youth and rebellion of decades past. “Don’t Cry” and “Basement Scene” evoke the eternally teenage sound of the Everly Brothers, filtered through a fever dream; the excellent “Memory Boy” cherishes “the smell of loose-leaf joints on jeans” with sparkling Anglophilic ‘60s pop. This may also be Deerhunter’s most emotionally varied album, spanning the jubilant sax on the oddly Strokes-like “Coronado” to “Helicopter”s heartbreaking chamber-pop, which embodies lonely side of memories. The band saves just enough room for two quintessentially Deerhunter tracks: Pundts gorgeous “Desire Lines” is a standout, taking flight halfway through into a glorious guitar excursion, while the transporting final track “He Would Have Laughed” is all the more poignant for its dedication to Jay Reatard. It’s not as immediate as previous Deerhunter albums, but Halcyon Digest has an appeal all its own: It’s as difficult to grasp -- and as hard to shake -- as a memory lingering at the back of your brain. | ||
 | Album: 11 of 14 Title: iTunes Live From SoHo Released: 2011-02-15 Tracks: 8 Duration: 41:15 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Desire Lines (06:44) 2 Hazel St. (03:26) 3 Dont Cry (04:30) 4 Revival (02:27) 5 Helicopter (07:51) 6 Fountain Stairs (02:39) 7 Rainwater Cassette Exchange (03:21) 8 He Would Have Laughed (10:17) |
 | Album: 12 of 14 Title: Monomania Released: 2013-05-06 Tracks: 12 Duration: 43:21 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Neon Junkyard (02:52) 2 Leather Jacket II (03:09) 3 The Missing (03:41) 4 Pensacola (04:00) 5 Dream Captain (03:02) 6 Blue Agent (03:30) 7 T.H.M. (04:19) 8 Sleepwalking (03:08) 9 Back to the Middle (02:37) 10 Monomania (05:19) 11 Nitebike (04:17) 12 Punk (La vie antérieure) (03:27) |
| Monomania : Allmusic album Review : Before Monomanias release, Deerhunter described the albums music as "nocturnal garage" -- an accurate, if somewhat elliptical, nutshell explanation of what Bradford Cox and crew (who include new bassist Josh McKay and additional guitarist Frankie Broyles) are up to on this set of songs. After Halcyon Digests nostalgic haze and the fragile beauty of Atlas Sounds Parallax, it seemed that Cox was drifting further away from the rawness of his early days. He breaks away from this insular turn on Monomania -- to a point. The albums first two songs, the unabashedly messy "Neon Junkyard" and riff-fest "Leather Jacket II," are the musical equivalent of blowing off steam after the more considered, delicate territory of Coxs recent past. Its not until "The Missing"s chiming guitars and harmonies that Monomania offers something resembling Deerhunters more recent output, and that song was written by longtime guitarist Lockett Pundt. Cox sometimes goes overboard with his fondness for abrasiveness, as on "Nitebike"s over the top vocal posturing or the way the odd coughing/barking backing vocals shatter "THM"s pretty reverie. More often, though, Monomanias willfully raw sounds adopt the tough persona and iconography of rock music with a capital R as shelter, like donning a leather jacket and a sneer as armor against lifes hardships. Cox borrows Julian Casablancas croak on "Pensacola" and Queens lyrics on "Dream Captain," where "Im just a poor boy from a poor family" is just one of the scruffy rock clichés that he celebrates. Deerhunters more familiar introspection creeps into Monomanias "nocturnal" songs, where the band uses its dreaminess to channel the feelings the albums louder moments try to drown out. They do so especially well on the equally melodic and acerbic "Blue Agent" and the gorgeous "Sleepwalking," both of which examine the chasms between former friends and lovers with very different perspectives. The album may be most interesting when the band plays with its tough/vulnerable duality: the title track is a plea that sounds like its on fire, while "Punk (La Vie Antérieure)" looks back on fearless days with tender acoustic guitars. At times, the album feels more meta than Deerhunters previous music, a complex way of delivering songs that are often much simpler -- on the surface, anyway -- than usual. By turns raw and reflective, Monomania is about shaking things up; its not as grand or cohesive as Microcastle or Halcyon Digest, but with repeated listens, its quick shifts in sound and mood feel more like different sides of the same coin than a split personality. Ultimately, it may be most remarkable for how easily Deerhunter can deliver catchy songs in any incarnation. | ||
 | Album: 13 of 14 Title: Fading Frontier Released: 2015-10-16 Tracks: 9 Duration: 36:05 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 All the Same (03:05) 2 Living My Life (03:49) 3 Breaker (03:31) 4 Duplex Planet (02:40) 5 Take Care (04:12) 6 Leather and Wood (05:55) 7 Snakeskin (04:20) 8 Ad astra (05:32) 9 Carrion (02:58) |
| Fading Frontier : Allmusic album Review : At one point on Fading Frontier, Bradford Cox sings "Take your handicaps/Channel them and feed them back/Until they become your strengths." Its a phrase that could be Deerhunters motto; theyve always excelled at celebrating misfit people and feelings, and never more so than on this album. Recorded in the wake of the accident that hospitalized Cox in December 2014, in some ways it feels like the band hit the reset button on Fading Frontier, which is as different from Monomania as that album was from what came before it. Aside from the slinky, disco-tinged outburst "Snakeskin," which could be the last remnant of Monomanias toughness, Fading Frontier hews closer to the sound the band forged on Microcastle and Halcyon Digest. Though they collaborated with Stereolabs Tim Gane and Broadcasts James Cargill -- both of whom know a thing or two about making weightless, introspective music -- "All the Same" casts a jangly spell that hovers between raucous and poignant and is classic Deerhunter. After Monomanias chaos, Fading Frontiers shimmering sonics bring literal and figurative clarity to the bands music, serving as reflecting pools for their meditations on seizing the moment -- and mourning the ones that they missed. They do both beautifully on the Cargill-assisted "Take Care" and the gorgeous "Breaker," where Cox sighs "When I die/There will be nothing to say/Except I tried not to waste another day." Cox returns to his obsession with memories on "Duplex Planet," as Ganes harpsichord adds a prickly edge to lyrics like "In your head you will fall asleep/And then you wont remember me." Nevertheless, the optimism bubbling under the melancholy makes Fading Frontier all the more affecting. "Living My Life" is one of Deerhunters most gently joyous-sounding songs yet, a blissful synth pop reverie that caresses where Monomania sneered. And while "Carrion"s reflections on enduring endings arent exactly happy, their resilience is emblematic of Fading Frontier as a whole: Musically and emotionally, this is one of Deerhunters most powerful -- and delicate -- albums. | ||
 | Album: 14 of 14 Title: Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? Released: 2019-01-18 Tracks: 10 Duration: 36:08 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Death in Midsummer (04:22) 2 No One’s Sleeping (04:25) 3 Greenpoint Gothic (02:02) 4 Element (02:59) 5 What Happens to People? (04:16) 6 Détournement (03:25) 7 Futurism (02:51) 8 Tarnung (03:07) 9 Plains (02:13) 10 Nocturne (06:24) |