Deerhunter!

The Joe Meek cover at the end is similarly great, with the same sort of spaghetti western produced sound.

I am digging Atlas Sound, we got it at KOPN this week. Proceeding to check out this new ep, too. Thanks for the heads up, Zach.

No problem, Sean.

http://www.gifs.net/Animation11/Animals/Cats/big_cat.gif

You know, delete "Hunting Quail" from that EP's playlist, and it's a pretty consistently great release. Best free thing I've downloaded all year. Dude puts up new songs about every four or five days, steadily. He's like a good Bob Pollard that's nice enough to release all the extra stuff as free, the night of recording, even. New touring band lineup looks goods, too:

B. COX (GUITAR, BASS, VOCALS)
BRIAN FOOTE (SYNTH, SAMPLER, PERCUSSION, VOCALS)
ADAM FORKNER (GUITAR, EFFECTS, LOOPS, DRUMS)
STEPHANIE MACKSEY (DRUMS, GUITAR)
HONEY OWENS (BASS, VOCALS, GUITAR)

Sorry, I don't mean to shout the names out, I just apple-X and apple-T'd it over from the website.

Uh, I apple-V'd it, I mean, not apple-T.

Atlas Sound are all right. Nothing fantastic tho.

the new album is pretty fantastic

You mean the Atlas Sound disc or the forthcoming Deerhunter disc?

yeah the new one is really "pretty"

So less rock-oriented than the debut? Is it more like the soft(er) electronic sounds on Atlas Sounds?

This guy records/releases a lot of music.

yeah daniel the new one is called microcastle

there are some quieter non-ambient moments but they're not electronic perse

just really nice guitar strumming

Do you know which label it's coming out on and (generally) when?

(I'm asking because if it's on Kranky, it should appear on eMusic).

i'm pretty sure they're still on kranky but i don't think this has a date yet

I've listened to this three times through. It's not bad at all. I'd rate it at about Cryptograms level of quality, which is decent, but after the awesome awesomeness of Fluorescent Grey, the Atlas Sound LP, and some of the random free tracks that get uploaded at deerhuntertheband.blogspot.com ("Activation", "Cloves" and "Sea Burial", specificially), I can't help but feel pretty disappointed.

That "trick" I was talking about upthread, busting into the MBV/Pixies/Nirvana chorus - I miss it, I can't lie. I think I remember reading somewhere that they went into the recording process with the intent to not use their various loop stations that they use in the live show, or at least not RELY on them. I miss the loop stations. Fluorescent Grey and the Atlas Sound LP are night time, woozy hazy records. The new one is sobering.

the new one is like summer backyard drinking jamz at least like half of it is (compared to atlas sound, cryptograms/floursecent grey)

sounds horrible.

Yeah, I've had the same thought a few times as I listen to it. I'm going to give it one more go, tonight, in "fuzzy" mode. I'm rooting for some sort of personal breakthrough with this. (plz post this in ILX posters casually mentioning ilicit or dangerous hobbies they engage in in an attempt to sound cool thread thanks)

i saw them in concert last night in paris, and cox made some girl from the audience read into the microphone the description of him in in the program, which included the phrase, 'anorexic giant.' he wanted the journalist that wrote it to come down to the stage so he could pee on him. 'this festival can suck my big american dick.'

i did my best to make that sound not amusing, because it wasn't.

he was quite amusing at Primavera. he regaled us with a little tale of witnessing a woman getting "finger banged" in a castle in Malaga.

the music was good though!

i am starting to hear the doowoop- Everly bros connection on certain songs, on others not so much. it's a record where he's not really moving forward, but sideways, whether that's a good or bad thing, i still can't tell.

alos, it's weird how his voice sounds different from record to record, sometimes from song to song. the thing about this band i've noticed is that about half of their records (flourescent grey excepted) are really great, the other half are sonically pleasant but not very engaging, boderline boring I would say.

does atlas sound deserve its own thread?

wow, that Atlas Sound EP is pretty good. can't believe I hadn't listened to it until now. mega bonus points to the Joe Meek cover, and even more bonus points for the intro reminding me of "Pueblo Domain", one of those awesome Pavement songs I always forget exists.

Er, sorry dudez I'm finally coming around on this. "Nothing Ever Happened" finally clicked for me tonight. What a striking structure! The chorus, perfect, only comes around once. You spend the whole rest of the song waiting for it to come back around, but instead you get pitchbending keyboard leads all the way home. I don't know what this record is, what mood it's for, if I'll come back to it later. It's confounding. YES.

does atlas sound deserve its own thread?

If he puts out another release as good as the last one, yes. Either way, an Atlas Sound thread won't happen for another 3-4 years (if the internet is still around then (if the WORLD is still around then ahahaha)).

they'll never do anything as good as Flourescent Grey again though, I think

i think cryptograms is awful and up until bradford tuned his schtick down i actively hated this band, but microcastle is a minor miracle imo. just completely chill, great drum sound, haunting if you want it to be but also relaxing and warm if you want it to be that. "nothing ever happened" is already a classic and the album starts and ends really well.

bradford was great at pfork too

I just finished listening to cryptograms like 15 minutes ago. I think it's a great album.

So a girl I used to know apparently joined this band recently. I guess I should check them out, what should I expect? All I got from Wikipedia was that they have "antics" of some sort and that they have an album called "Turn It Up, Faggot" which doesn't really inspire me...but they're good?

i dig 'em.
get the fluorescent grey ep.

seriously who woulda thought they could lock into a groove like the one on "nothing ever happened"

yea, i'm not a huge fan of cryptograms, but microcastle is doing it for me. 'twilight at carbon lake' kicking my ass

i think cryptograms is awful and up until bradford tuned his schtick down i actively hated this band

Sort of surprised you feel this way, Jordan. A lot of Cryptograms washes over me and I can't recall specific tunes, but it has a great vibe, and a dangerous edge that's sometimes sorely lacking in indie. But I'm glad to hear you like the new disc.

get the fluorescent grey ep.

Yeah, it's much poppier than Cryptograms. And the first song on it -- Fluorescent Grey -- is where all the experimenting and fusing of drone and ambient and rock really pay off. The song is swirling and driving and has great texture and a real edge to it.

i still think their best moment 'like new.'

im not into ambience really, and things that i let wash over me are usually happy/sunny stuff (something like the ruby suns maybe) so if i just thought cryptograms was really boring. couldn't grasp any of it, but it's not my type of music either so it's not so much an indictment of the album as something larger i guess.

i don't like when bands like this try on "pop", it just never clicks with me. the songs on here that i love, "agoraphobia"/"never stops"/"nothing ever happened" are really propulsive even in a back-porch/relaxed type way

which makes the ambient stuff here way more special imo

Ah. I was just about to ask whether the new songs are less ambient/droning and more pop-oriented.

get the fluorescent grey ep.

Can't be said enough, really.

i know there was an interview on pitchfork with bradford (done by marc hogan i think) that's not this one http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/43085-interview-deerhunter

id like to read it but the current incarnation of pfork's search feature is the worst on the internet i think and i'm tired of filtering through google results

help

maybe im making this up actually

this one? http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/42945-deerhunters-cox-talks-lp3-atlas-sound-dresses

Never Stops is one of my fave songs of 2008 thus far....

this might be the one:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/47762-interview-atlas-sound

yesss

thanks dude

Jordan, want some advice? Be wary of any interview/blog entry involving Bradford. Dude makes great music, consistently and prolifically, but he's stuck in the mindset of a 17-year-old boy. A good number of people hate Deerhunter/Atlas Sound based upon the dumb things he has said or done, without ever hearing more than 2 songs. Anyways, I digress, but the point is that reading a substantial amount of what he has to say is more likely to diminish rather than enhance your appreciation of his music.

and that they have an album called "Turn It Up, Faggot"

I still have never gotten around to listening to this, and I doubt I will anytime soon, since Bradford basically disowns it every time someone brings it up.

funny you say that cuz i was gonna post in here about how much his rambling shit in this interview makes me like him/identify with him a lot more than if someone just gave me an untitled cd-r. maybe its cuz i've always been slightly fascinated w/ bradford even when i thought the music was awful (i remember reading this interview pretty clearly even though at the time i hated deerhunter and thought atlas sound was just "nice", which is i was looking for this interview specifically), but i couldn't imagine listening to deerhunter in "just listening to the music" mode. i think he's a really interesting and conflicted dude that i identify closely with which is why i even bothered to spend time w/ microcastle and makes me even happier to like it.

haha, even better for you then!

Yeah, although I advised not reading his interviews and blog, I guess I really advise not letting it ruin the music for you, if it rubs you the wrong way. Myself, I read pretty much everything he says like a pathetic fanboy. Once you get into it, it's like sitting in on therapy with a strange child.

Thanks for the tips, y'all - I'll do some seeking around, prolly this Fluorescent Gray thing...

realized it's way past time I put together mixes for my two favorite bands (Girlpool next), figured I'd share

1. Game of Diamonds
2. Futurism
3. Duplex Planet
4. Memory Boy
5. Microcastle
6. Vox Celeste
7. Strange Lights
8. Dream Captain
9. Revival
10. River Card
11. Pensacola
12. Eveningness

13. Like New
14. Parallax
15. Helicopter
16. Nothing Ever Happened
17. The Missing
18. Criminals
19. Take Care
20. What Happens to People?
21. Doldrums
22. Cover Me (Slowly)
23. Agoraphobia

felt incomplete without some (4) Atlas Sound & a (1) Lotus Plaza. an earlier version (that I've already road tripped with, therefore official?) had "Mona Lisa" instead of "Parallax," there's no good way to not overrepresent that album

i was thinking of deerhunter/bradford cox today, and how it's been a minute since i heard anything from them. i did some light searching, found speculation on reddit that cox is just kind of taking it easy/doesn't feel like playing music lately (the spoon guy suggested as much in an interview a while back). but also, he returned earlier this year for an improv experimental set in athens:

https://www.stereogum.com/2230238/bradford-cox-performs-for-the-first-time-in-years-at-vintage-market-in-athens-ga/news/

Covid considered, they are not too much behind their typical album cycle. I’m friendly with Lockett and the last time I saw him he said they are still planning to continue being a band. Bradford has always had health problems, so I think it might just be a pause.