I’ve been hearing about how good Deerhunter is for a couple of years now. Admittedly, a lot of the kudos was from Pitchfork, who routinely give 8/10s to dime-a-dozen Southern rappers and the side projects of hipster side projects – so I have learned to take their enthusiasm with a grain of obscure salt. My biggest reaction prior to finally listening to their latest album, Halcyon Digest, a week ago was to giggle and shout, “Mau!” I was ignorant, folks. Ignorant and so very, very wrong. Pass the revolver and make sure Mikey hasn’t drowned or been eaten by rats yet. How’s that for obscure?
The whole record is great. Standouts include “Helicopter”, “Revival” and “Coranado” – but the tune that has kept me completely obsessed, for a variety of reasons I’m about to get into (and for at least 50 listens to date), is the remarkable “Desire Lines”. Get stuck into it right now…
Homage or not, this song’s been added to my all-time favorites list.
It’s a beautiful, catchy song. Bradford Cox and company know how to write themselves a tune. And after you get through the first 4 lovely minutes, it shifts gear into another 4 minutes of equally listenable, lyric-less jamming. Here’s where I get especially turned on – the similarities of said 4-minute jam to the last 4 minutes of my favorite Pixies tune, also sans lyrics after a completely different sounding first half, are so striking that it absolutely has to be some sort of homage. That or an accident perpetrated by the Gods especially for me. You be the judge…
This Monkey’s Been to Heaven. And most likely Atlanta, Georgia.
Any way you slice it, “Desire Lines” uncanny resemblance to “No. 13 Baby” in no way detracts from my enjoyment of Deerhunter’s new classic. It is so rare that a song, let alone an entire LP, reaches out and grabs me like this that it absolutely had to be the first Wadio of 2011. I hope you like it and look forward to your comments. It’s gonna be a good year for music.
