This week could have proven one of the best weeks of 2008 for “Indie” music lovers. Two of my favorite groups, who happen to be a couple of the genre’s most consistently exciting and envelope-pushing bands, were scheduled to have new albums out Tuesday. And I was souped that even in a year like this, blessed with an abundance of stellar releases by some of my favorite bands and numerous talented newcomers from every corner of the “Indie” landscape, a single day could have held the prospect of so much more aural pleasure for me and people like me.
I’ve been anticipating one of the records originally set for release this week (more on that tomorrow) for almost two years. Which is, incidentally, almost the same length of time it’s been since I first heard the last album from today’s featurees, Bay Area-based Noise-Pop outfit Deerhoof. It wasn’t until a few short months ago however, that I became aware they even had a new album on deck. It was one of those coincidental incidents that seems to happen to me all the time; one day I was thinking “gee, I wonder when Deerhoof is gonna put out something new” and checking the internets for information, and the next I was reading a track-listing for a forthcoming LP, titled Offend Maggie, and marking an October 7th release date down in my calendar.
So, my anticipation for a new Deerhoof LP went from optimistically non-existent to Pavlovian-like mouth-watering freakishly fast. And time, it seems, has flown between that announcement in June and today, the day before the official release date. But just because it caught me relatively unawares, particularly when held up comparatively against the record I’ll be discussing tomorrow (which, unlike Offend Maggie, won’t actually be released this week after all), that doesn’t mean I’m any less psyched to have a band I absolutely love gracing my headphones again with a brand new album.
Coincidentally, “psyched” might be a good word to describe a few of the songs on Dear Maggie. Not all of course, but a couple of tunes get a little hippy-dippy, and there seems to be a nostalgia for sun-baked Cali Chamber-Pop, improvisational psychedelic proto-jam-bandery, freaky Folk and doobie-friendly Classic Rock at work throughout the album. Not surprising from a band who’s experimented in various measure with explosive Noise, cutesy Twee, spazzy Art-Funk, Free-Jazz-influenced Post-Punk, traditional Garage-Rock-inspired Indie, lo-fi electronics and even Stax-esque horns, sometimes within the framework of a single composition which morphs through multiple movements and time signatures. In contrast, Offend Maggie isn’t singularly “different” from the music of other less-adventurous bands, but because it’s different from Deerhoof’s most recent records, and different simply because Deerhoof is always different.
With a gritty juke-joint Blues rhythm and icicle-like guitar tendril “Chandelier Searchlite” evokes The Grateful Dead trying to recreate the Memphis Soul-sampled grooves RZA constructed for the GZA’s tales of urban decay on Liquid Swords. Shimmering guitars and insistent bass chugging on “Buck and Judy” are beautifully crystalline and ominously grinding, like a massive glacier crawling it’s way towards civilization which it will eventually retake via a calamitous ice-age. “Snoopy Waves” is like The Beatles gone Funk, with a sensuously slithering bassline, whining guitars and steady thumping pace, and could easily pass for a track from Of Montreal’s The Sunlandic Twins. The bare-boned “Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back” is an irresistibly straightforward avant-Garage number with guitar and bass fuzzier than your childhood teddy bear, and should be adopted as the new theme-song of the NBA immediately. Tunes like “The Tears and Music of Love” and the first single “Fresh Born” remind me of a more playful Rage Against the Machine, or The Roots if they went Rock ‘N Roll, with their gargantuan drums and repetitive loop-like riff snatches. Other cuts, like the hard-edged Power-Pop meets smoothed-out Sunshine-Pop of “My Purple Past,” the abstract polygonal drone of “Jagged Fruit,” the twangy Postal Service-ish Psyche-Folk-tronica pulse of “Family of Others,” and the stripped-down and jazzy but ultimately cacophonous “Numina O,” are just plain pretty.
Deerhoof “Fresh Born”
Offend Maggie, far from being abrasive, aggravating or off putting, is in many respect soft and subtle compared even to the band’s last few full-lengths. Which isn’t to say the band has set its avant-garde tendencies aside. Lead vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki still has one of the most unique voices and approaches to songwriting & lyricism in popular music. Songs still transform and twist around themselves, crashing and screeching where they were only gently thrumming. If anything, I view Deerhoof’s ongoing incorporation of conventional song-structure and winsome harmonies, melodies & rhythms as another experiment that advances their artistic agenda; a subversion of normalcy rather than an attempt at achieving it.
How could anyone possibly be offended?