deerhoof

Deerhoof previewed Deerhoof vs. Evil by leaking the album one track at a time to websites all over the world -- a quirky and confident move, as well as a very Deerhoof one: though the acclaim surrounding the band has grown with virtually every album, Deerhoof haven’t sacrificed any of their avant-garde leanings for their high profile. The band returns, two and a half years after the all-encompassing Offend Maggie!, with its weirdest, poppiest, and most concise set of songs since Friend Opportunity -- it’s almost as if Deerhoof used that time to whittle the album down to only the most striking and catchiest bits. Deerhoof vs. Evil plays with distinct sonic motifs, contrasting its crystalline melodies with dense squalls of noise and expressive percussion that hark back to the band’s... Less

Self-recorded, mixed, and mastered in rehearsal spaces and band members' basements with no engineers or outside input, Deerhoof vs. Evil dresses up Deerhoof's wellknown recklessness in a newfound elastic groove -- one filled with big-hit choruses and exuberantly unfamiliar colors. The musical equivalent of hormones raging out of control, the record explodes out of the speakers with its gawky triumph and inflamed sentimentality. This is Deerhoof's ode to their own adolescence. This is Deerhoof vs. Evil.

(Record Store Day 2011 Exclusive, Limited to 2,000 Copies on Orange Vinyl, Includes MP3 Download!!)

Audio Mixer: Greg Saunier. Recording information: Deerhoof's Practice Room; Ed's Basement. Photographer: Sarah Cass.Delivering another dose of percussive noise pop, Deerhoof return with their tenth studio album, Deerhoof vs. Evil. Endearing, mind-melting, and danceable, the album continues to showcase the band's talent for rhythmic experimentation.

DEERHOOFSatomi Matsuzaki plays bass and sings, Greg Saunier plays drums, John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez play guitars. But what is Deerhoof really? Hell if we know. Pitchfork went so far as to label Deerhoof as the best band in the world. The New York Times described them as one of the most original rock bands to have come along in the last decade. From their humble beginnings as an obscure San Francisco noise act, they've become one of indie music's most influential bands with their ecstatic and unruly take on pop. Deerhoof has released 11 self-produced albums and continues to tour the world frequently. The members of Deerhoof are Satomi Matsuzaki, John Dieterich, Ed Rodriguez and Greg Saunier.HALF WAIF I m half Indian, half Irish, half Swiss, and all American. So declared Nandi Rose... Less

Say what you will about Deerhoof, but they know how to write a beautiful song. And ''Offend Maggie'' is all the more beautiful for the fact that it seems to come out of nowhere. For all its sparkling musicanship, it sounds casually tossed off like it was nothing at all. It's a new sound for the band as much as it's a new sound for pop music. While John Dieterich's acoustic guitar seems to channel Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure, Ed Rodriguez's electric conjures classic Townsend. Singer/bassist Satomi Matsuzaki (with drummer Greg Saunier on harmony vocal) tells a plaintive story in which telemarketing calls are a metaphor for unrequited love. The bittersweet magic of this short song promises a major thrill ride when its 14-track namesake is released next month. For those who have been... Less

San Francisco's strident Deerhoof is a much-loved deconstructionist art-pop outfit. The band is part no wave skronk, part Yoko Ono meets the B-52's, and part weirdo J-pop, and continues to push the musical envelope on each new recording. Reveille is a pretty good example of what Deerhoof is capable of. Quite a few of its songs are instrumental, for the most part, helter- skelterish flare-ups with primitive Casio-like bloops and bleeps, angular fizz-pop guitars, and epileptic drum freakouts. Those few songs that feature Satomi Matsuzaki's purring falsetto -- her very presence elevates this band above most avant pop groups -- have a simplicity and sugar-soaked sweetness, enticing listeners with charm before boxing their ears with an all-out aural assault. Reveille begins with an unassuming... Less

After seven albums' worth of gleeful pandemonium, Deerhoof calm things down a bit with The Runners Four, a collection of songs that are even more restrained than Milk Man and the Green Cosmos EP. Perhaps trying for the unpredictability of their earlier work got too, well, predictable for the band. Even though the manic intensity that characterized work like Reveille is missed a little here, The Runners Four is still a far cry from typical indie rock; in fact, it sounds more like one of Deerhoof's older albums played at half-speed than anything else. Most importantly, the joyful creativity that radiates from all of the band's other work is here in spades, too: it's hard not to smile at Twin Killers' zigzagging riffs or Scream Team's giddy, girl-boy vocals. At the beginning of the album,... Less

Deerhoof is a quartet comprised of half-male/half-fem ale parts, playing guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards. The music on Holdy Paws seems very live, like the band is actually playing right in front of you in your room. The Blonde Redhead comparisons are unavoidable: higher-pitched female vocals backed by thick distorted guitar, angular drums, and very minimal keyboards. The single-note keyboard parts seem to push Deerhoof along to a slightly different direction. What really makes this record interesting is the anthropomorphism of the lyrics. Deerhoof is possibly trying to tell the feelings of animals in the perspective of the animals. They bring you into the animal realm, but never take you on an adventure, just kind of leaving you stranded. The Moose's Daughter has a Shellac sound,... Less

Say what you will about Deerhoof, but they know how to write a beautiful song. And ''Offend Maggie'' is all the more beautiful for the fact that it seems to come out of nowhere. For all its sparkling musicanship, it sounds casually tossed off like it was nothing at all. It's a new sound for the band as much as it's a new sound for pop music. While John Dieterich's acoustic guitar seems to channel Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure, Ed Rodriguez's electric conjures classic Townsend. Singer/bassist Satomi Matsuzaki (with drummer Greg Saunier on harmony vocal) tells a plaintive story in which telemarketing calls are a metaphor for unrequited love. The bittersweet magic of this short song promises a major thrill ride when its 14-track namesake is released next month. For those who have been... Less

Deerhoof play with a primal abandon and molten group chemistry that remains untamed since the band's early days. Still, at nearly twice the length of their previous albums, The Runners Four is more complex and challenging than anything they've recorded. This is more than rock; it's a wholesale rewrite of the rock and roll dictionary. Deerhoof herald the era of the defiant DIY album. The Runners Four: a quartet of racers, chasers, messengers, even smugglers, gleefully smashing through outmoded boundaries, bearing gifts of sonic contraband. This is Deerhoof's magnificent autobiography. Kill Rock Stars. 2005.

Experimental yet cute, fantastical, and freewheeling, Flying's Faces of the Night feels like it comes from a world that's hidden in a cloud, which they sing about on Double-Hearted Clown. The band's whimsical sound is more focused this time than it was on Just-One-Second-Ag o-Broken Eggshell, but Flying's outbursts and sweetly spacy moments still recall the Curtains and former tourmates Deerhoof, especially on Body Bent, which pairs little-girl vocals with bashed-out rhythms. Noise rock, folk-pop, and funk are all grist for Flying's musical mill, and the wah-wah guitar on Stains and the loping bassline that pins down Firetruck's saxophone and synth workouts make Faces of the Night occasionally feel like an extremely lysergic children's album from the '70s. Sometimes things get too... Less

The easiest way to describe an all but unknown band is to invoke the name of a slightly less obscure artist. In the case of Portland quartet Mise en Abyme, the closest point of comparison are San Francisco noise-rockers Deerhoof, but even then, the differences threaten to outweigh the points of similarity. Like most of Deerhoof's records, there are passages of needley, near-atonality on Jesquibel, which alternate with moments of relative tranquility. However, on this album, the calm moments are often downright pretty in a way that Deerhoof never quite are; the latter can't de-skronkify themselves enough to achieve that. Norm, despite its glitchy, cut-up beats and the percussive use of signal decay, features guitar and keyboard lines almost Eno-like in their serenity, and the 90-second... Less

Say what you will about Deerhoof, but they know how to write a beautiful song. And ''Offend Maggie'' is all the more beautiful for the fact that it seems to come out of nowhere. For all its sparkling musicanship, it sounds casually tossed off like it was nothing at all. It's a new sound for the band as much as it's a new sound for pop music. While John Dieterich's acoustic guitar seems to channel Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure, Ed Rodriguez's electric conjures classic Townsend. Singer/bassist Satomi Matsuzaki (with drummer Greg Saunier on harmony vocal) tells a plaintive story in which telemarketing calls are a metaphor for unrequited love. The bittersweet magic of this short song promises a major thrill ride when its 14-track namesake is released next month. For those who have been... Less

Deerhoof play with a primal abandon and molten group chemistry that remains untamed since the band's early days. Still, at nearly twice the length of their previous albums, The Runners Four is more complex and challenging than anything they've recorded. This is more than rock; it's a wholesale rewrite of the rock and roll dictionary. Deerhoof herald the era of the defiant DIY album. The Runners Four: a quartet of racers, chasers, messengers, even smugglers, gleefully smashing through outmoded boundaries, bearing gifts of sonic contraband. This is Deerhoof's magnificent autobiography. Kill Rock Stars. 2005.

The sixth and most accessible album to date, featuring a star-studded cast of players including Deerhoof, Sufjan Stevens, Sereena-Maneesh, and more. What began as a senior thesis project a decade ago has evolved into a musical world so rich with musicality and merrymaking that the first six albums and ten years of touring pomp alone could nourish the most scrutinizing of thrill-seekers. There's no hard distinction between the visuals (costumes and graphics) and the music from this suburban New Jersey group. One enters your heart through your eyes, one through your ears, says Daniel. On tour May through September throughout the US.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2013 debut album from this duo consisting of Sean Lennon and Greg Saunier (Deerhoof). Instrumental Psych Rock and Avant Garde in a variety of moods and styles. Truly, the music here is all over the place, but it's held together by a rigorous intelligence of conception and a joyful 'DO IT' spontaneity that continually challenges both players and listeners. They destroy form in any style you can imagine.

Montreal art rockers Suuns' 2010 debut Zeroes CQ was a little lost in a sea of influences, but broke up messy Deerhoof-meets-Cli nic jams with refreshing open-aired moments. Sophomore follow-up Images du Futur is an entirely more cohesive synthesis of the heavy and the spare, with the band creating both space and dramatic tension within even their most driving songs. Tracks like 2020 draw on various styles and elements without becoming cluttered, even when a wobbly, near-dubstep electronic bass pulse is the backdrop for guitar lines that shift between skronky no wave slides and shimmering, ghostly tremolo. Singer Ben Shemie's soft and stumbling vocals are a perfect blend of Thom Yorke and Clinic's Ade Blackburn, sitting menacingly beneath the music on most songs. The bristling uneasiness... Less

While no one would ever Deerhoof accuse of conventionality, the San Francisco quartet presented their closest stab with 2004's Milk Man, their sixth full-length. Based on a cartoon character dreamed up by the artist Ken Kagimi, the song cycle tells its story in song and finds the band pruning their aural paroxysms with a cleaner, more steamlined sound. Chris Cohen and John Dieterich offer splashes of electric angularity and off-balance riff eruptions with reference points across the art guitar gamut from Zoot Horn Rolo to Marc Ribot and even approach classic rock simplicity on songs like the title track and Milking. As on all Deerhoof's outings, singer-bassist Satomi Matsuzaki once again keeps things thankfully clear of avant-prog wankery with her familiar turn as Japan's answer to Astrud... Less

Cassette City is a self-consciously fresh affair, full of care: Lushlife drops gully slang alongside guest spots by members of Deerhoof, Vampire Weekend, and Ariel Pink, everything meted out in perfect measure so as not to overbear. The track transitions, drum drops, and fleeting verses all seem labored over, everything meticulous, each hit perfect. Thing is, it works. Despite a host of reasons to pocket the record snootily into post-backpack hipster rap, the record defies any but the sternest listener's dislike. Because, really, it's a lot of fun, perfectly so, even if Lushlife's trans-genre SMiLE-meets-Illmat ic aspirations were achieved first (and with blinding success) by Edan on Beauty and the Beat. Tracks like the Meridian Sound trio echo postmillennial electronic indie acts like... Less

2013 debut album from this duo consisting of Sean Lennon and Greg Saunier (Deerhoof). Instrumental Psych Rock and Avant Garde in a variety of moods and styles. Truly, the music here is all over the place, but it's held together by a rigorous intelligence of conception and a joyful 'DO IT' spontaneity that continually challenges both players and listeners. They destroy form in any style you can imagine.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2013 debut album from this duo consisting of Sean Lennon and Greg Saunier (Deerhoof). Instrumental Psych Rock and Avant Garde in a variety of moods and styles. Truly, the music here is all over the place, but it's held together by a rigorous intelligence of conception and a joyful 'DO IT' spontaneity that continually challenges both players and listeners. They destroy form in any style you can imagine.

In 2007, having toured with Radiohead, The Roots, and Wilco, Deerhoof released Friend Opportunity. The album features the group returning to the same three-person lineup who appeared on Reveille

Though Chris Cohen's name might not ring any bells for a lot of people, his playing has silently enriched countless records and live performances for better-known acts for years. Apart from being a key contributor to criminally underappreciated bands like Curtains and Cryptacize, Cohen played with Deerhoof, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Cass McCombs, White Magic, and many others for years before striking out under his own name with Overgrown Path. The album's nine songs of gently psyched-out orchestral rock don't sound so much like a continuation of any of the bands he's worked with over the years as they do an incredible expansion of the ideas he planted seeds for with former bands. The album's understated songs are deftly organized affairs of both arrangement and dynamics. Phased-out... Less

The sixth and most accessible album to date, featuring a star-studded cast of players including Deerhoof, Sufjan Stevens, Sereena-Maneesh, and more. What began as a senior thesis project a decade ago has evolved into a musical world so rich with musicality and merrymaking that the first six albums and ten years of touring pomp alone could nourish the most scrutinizing of thrill-seekers. There's no hard distinction between the visuals (costumes and graphics) and the music from this suburban New Jersey group. One enters your heart through your eyes, one through your ears, says Daniel. On tour May through September throughout the US.