With eighth studio album Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? released next Friday, Atlanta’s Deerhunter have shared a new song, ‘Plains’ today.
Inspired by James Dean who spent the last summer of his life filming ‘Giant’ in Marfa, Texas in 1955, ‘Plains’ follows singles ‘Element’ and ‘Death in Midsummer’. Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? is released digitally on 18th January 2019.
Listen to new single ‘Plains’ here.
“I was listening to the trains. I was up all night. And something glistened in the strange blood-diffused light. My friend was missing. And I was ghost. I was flame. I was bright. I was listening to the trains. I was up all night. “Oh, James. You’ve got no reason to stay in these plains.” I was racing against time with this friend of mine. Collapsing just before we reach the end of the line. He was lifted. Diamond straight. Straight was cold. Cold was black. And black was glistening. All the night – the sound of trains. “Oh, James. You’ve got no reason to stay in these plains.” These plains are barren and hateful terrain. And what remains is the sound of trains.”
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.
Watch the official video for
‘Death in Midsummer’
From the opening harpsichord and piano figures of ‘Death in Midsummer’, it is impossible to tell where the record came from. Is ‘No One’s Sleeping’ an outtake of an aborted Kinks recording session in 1977 Berlin with Eno producing? No. That is nostalgia. If there is one thing Deerhunter are making clear it is that they have exhausted themselves with that toxic concept.
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?
