How do you describe an album out of time, concerned with the disappearance of culture, of humanity, of nature,
of logic and emotion? Why make this album in an era when attention spans have been reduced to next to nothing,
and the tactile grains of making music have been further reduced to algorithms and projected playlist placement.
Why wake up in the morning? Why hasn’t everything already disappeared?
Deerhunter’s eighth LP 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.
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 is 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 has 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 ’70s.
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?
Produced by Cate LeBon, Ben H. Allen III, Ben Etter, and Deerhunter
Engineered by Ben Etter, Samur Khouja, and Bradford Cox
Mixed by Ben Etter, Ben H. Allen III, and Bradford Cox
Recorded at:
Marfa Recording, Marfa Tx
Sonic Ranch, Tx
Seahorse Sound, Los Angeles
Maze Studios, Atlanta
Attic of B. Cox, Grant Park, Atlanta
Deerhunter are: Bradford Cox, Lockett Pundt, Moses Archuleta, Josh McKay, and Javier Morales
Cate LeBon plays harpsichord on ‘Death In Midsummer’ and sings on ‘Tarnung’
Tim Presley plays abstract lead guitar on ‘Futurism’
Ben H. Allen III plays a synthetic bass system on ‘Plains’
Ian Horrocks plays contrabass on ‘Nocturne’
SIDE ONE:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Greenpoint Gothic (2:02)
An architectural interlude for synthesizer and drums.
4. Element (3:00)
Elegy for Ecology (a landscape done in toxic watercolours)
5. What Happens To People (4:16)
Eulogy for “Emotions”
SIDE TWO:
6. Détournement (3:26)
A postcard from the slipstream
7. Futurism (2:52)
Nostalgia is toxic.
8. Tarnung (3:08)
A walk through Europe in the rain
9. Plains (2:13)
James Dean spent the Summer of 1955 in Marfa, Texas filming ‘Giant,’ before his death on September 30th.
10. Nocturne (6:25)
Live stream from the afterlife.
Total: 37 minutes
A note from Bradford:
I.
l’études des parfums
here is the vomit of 20th century
solutions of india ink and ox bile
OUTSIDE INDUSTRIAL GARAGE
reset ORANGE GOAL
the pageant of chrome
(and chrome colours: yellow chord / green rhythm)
STANDARDS:
here, the stars die in gardens
stale and malignant
Harpsichord and Bass Clarinet
composition of fabric and sulphur
matchless PRAX
Vampire Salon
of human dignity, compete
then we relax in glass
of no colour
colourless liquid afternoons
of italian marble and
a gallery of snare sounds
II.
“Who, with traction_”
(placid matrix of Club Country
in these pastel tonics)
Some Twilight Hunting
Plaid Motor Robes
oil of cypress DISTIL
ALPINE flashing
against dark lens
The Common Gentle Surface
abraded by Rum and Bay Leaves
so when your CARBON FLEX
of rolodex foxfire
III.
The union of ink and circuit ABSORBED BY GREEN
water
tinted with minerals
and ENGLISH RAIN
the landscape colours neutralized
by Payne’s Grey
OCHRE transfigured into Ceramic Blanche
shell pink in tins with yellow printing
HORSE hair and tired HORSE
(HORSE IS NOT MOVING)
fixed in cul-de-sac
IV.
• CASED THE JOINT
• with latex and enamel flash
• reversed circulation to create
• perfect chaos out of dust
• and the discovery of the short scale of our own vision
• we retreated back into print
• the vagrants watching us with steel teeth
• locked into place
• ready for the music
• chewing at cables and snares
V.
• TOLEX landscape of northern industrial charcoal heath VAST
• what floats out of transfixion
• the black, flat passions
• the synthesizer
• The lead peeling off the plaster gallery of saints:
o ST. VARIAX
o ST. CLOROX
o ST. CLB SODA
o ST. TACK PIANO
(rooms of incense and nickel candles wrapped in brown paper.)
The DRACONIA County post office
yellowed letters in automatic tone
in mechanical percussion
incinerated
under lavender skies
of spinster piano music
VI.
VANQUISH THE MELODIC
