Deerhunter are a pretty rad band from Atlanta, Georgia in the USA and after watching them twice in one day a few weeks ago at the Deaf Institute in Manchester, I feel compelled to talk about them. Handily, they've just released a new E.P too so what better time than now to show them some love?
People like to label Deerhunter a 'shoegaze' band. Calling a band's music 'shoegaze' usually implies that said band employ a lot of fairly unnecessary noise as a substitute for good songs (My Bloody Valentine - you're rubbish). I guess I can see why Deerhunter might be subjected to such lazy categorisation, there are some noisy elements to their sound and the whispered vocals and weird sound effects on 'Rainwater Cassette Exchange' are reminiscent of 'shoegaze' bands. The main difference is that Deerhunter's music is rooted in 1960s pop music and krautrock and thus the noise elements, rather than act as the basis of the song, make the music sound modern and thrilling.
When I saw them in Manchester they were much rockier than I expected. It made me think about how cool it is to build upon what has been committed to record and not just recreate its sound perfectly when performing live. There's a real pace to Deerhunter's songs when performed live and the more rocky elements of their songs emerge. Their bass player is great. It's the contrast between the two different settings for their music that makes them such an interesting band.
'We are a Romanian sound collage' is a great lyric, sung by one of the guys from the Black Lips on Deerhunter's last album. Other than that, I don't really know what they sing about. I think the singer is into introspection and stuff, it doesn't really matter to be honest.
Deerhunter's myspace is here. Currently there are no 'Rainwater...' songs there but 'Never Stops' is a great song to start with. 'Rainwater Cassette Exchange' can be downloaded here.
Don't forget to put commas in your tag words pal. I'll have to check Rainwater out.
ReplyDelete