Today, Deerhunter release ‘Element’, the second single to be taken from their forthcoming studio album, Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?
Listen here: http://4ad.co/Element
Described by Atlanta-based frontman Bradford Cox as “an elegy for ecology (a landscape done in toxic watercolors)”, ‘Element’ follows in the footsteps of album opener ‘Death in Midsummer’. Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? will be released on 18th January 2019.
Deerhunter’s eighth LP Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared forgets the questions and makes up unrelated answers. It gets up, walks around, it records itself in several strategic geographic points across North America. It comes home, restructures itself and goes back to bed to avoid the bad news.
What they spend their time doing instead is reinventing their approach to microphones, the drum kit, the harpsichord, the electromechanical and synthetic sounds of keyboards. Whatever guitars are left are pure chrome, plugged straight into the mixing desk with no amplifier or vintage warmth. The result is as thrilling, haunting, and unpredictable as anything in their roughly 15-year career.
Deerhunter have made a science fiction album about the present. Is it needed right now? Is it relevant? Perhaps only to a small audience. DADA was a reaction to the horrors of war. Punk was a reaction to the slow and vacant 70’s. Hip Hop was a liberated musical culture that challenged the notions presented wholesale about the African-American experience. What is popular music today a reaction to?
SIDE ONE:
- Death In Midsummer (4:22)
Caption of photograph found in book: “Revolution In The Streets of St. Petersburg, July 1917.” The photo shows figures of people running away from piles of bodies - No One’s Sleeping (4:26)
On 16 June, 2016 Labor Party MP Helen Joanne Cox died after being shot and stabbed multiple times in Birstall by Thomas Mair, a mentally ill man with ties to a Neo-Nazi organization He shouted “Britain first” as he carried out the attack. - Greenpoint Gothic(2:02)
An architectural interlude for synthesizer and drums. - Element (3:00)
Elegy for Ecology (a landscape done in toxic watercolors) - What Happens To People(4:16)
Eulogy for “Emotions”
SIDE TWO: - Détournement(3:26)
A postcard from the slipstream - Futurism(2:52)
Nostalgia is toxic. - Tarnung(3:08)
A walk through Europe in the rain - Plains(2:13)
James Dean spent the Summer of 1955 in Marfa, Texas filming ‘Giant,’ before his death on September 30th. - Nocturne(6:25)
Live stream from the afterlife.
