Crib Notes

This week NylonMag.com posted a short “Mixtape” piece on Deerhunter. the post is all about a mixtape that Deerhunter drummer Moses Archuleta “made for his girlfriend, but gave to [Nylon] instead.”

Moses says…

“So, I tried really hard to come up with a mixtape, but to no avail. I’m usually pretty good at it, if I may say so myself. I had all these lofty ideas for different themed playlists (winter weather, van music, industrial, percussion favorites). I love doing it and it’s usually so easy. Maybe it was the impending mega-tour or overwhelming indecisiveness or who knows what, but I froze up and was unable to produce anything.

But I’m in DC right now on Election Day and it’s raining today and that was actually the jumping point for the last mixtape I put together. So, I leave you with a mixtape I made for my girlfriend a few weeks ago. (Ewwwww gross/Awwwww cute, etc.)”

Vague Fall 2008 theme. 60 minute cassette format. Enjoy.

Side A)
Scott Walker - “It’s Raining Today”
Dislocation Dance - “Tyrannies Of Fun”
Quickspace - “The Flat Moon Society”
Unwound - “Demons Sing Love Songs”
Crystal Stilts - “Crystal Stilts”
My Bloody Valentine – “Thorn”
The Feelies - “Let’s Go”
Billy Bragg & Wilco - “California Stars”

Side B)
Eluvium - “Area 41″
Scott Walker - “Old Man’s Back Again (Dedicated To The Neo-Stalinist Regime)”
Faust – “Jennifer”
Elvis Presley - “Blue Moon”
T. Rex - “Mystic Lady”
Electric Light Orchestra - “Livin’ Thing”
Love - “Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale”
Moondog – “Maybe”
Tom Waits - “Innocent When You Dream (78)”

(Photo by Erik Ian)

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Longtime Atlanta music scene fixture Adam Bruneau has created videos for two songs from Deerhunter’s third full-length, Microcastle.

Bruneau has served in the local music community performing as an auxiliary member of dozens of local groups, including a short stint with Deerhunter, the Kiwis and Phonepunk; although it’s been a few years since Phonepunk made any appearances… Sadly.

The videos, for “Microcastle” and “Cover Me (slowly)” are posted on Adam’s blog, Rabbits Full of Magic.

Deerhunter - Cover Me Slowly from Adam Bruneau on Vimeo.

These are videos for songs from Deerhunter’s new album Microcastle, which has just come out on Kranky and 4AD records, and which is flawless and wonderful. I had talked to Bradford about doing some video and I knew this was a fall/winter record, so upon finding myself going up Borestone mountain in Maine in the middle of October at peak season for color-changing leaves, I captured the footage that ended up in these videos. Cover Me (Slowly) kept making me think of the beginning of Twin Peaks so when I found a waterfall at the foothills of the mountain I knew it was meant to be. I changed the tint to match some of the cover art, a pink picture of someone with a skull in their eye. I played with how the video synced to the audio a number of different ways before trying random alignments and finding parts in the original unedited footage that would line up with cues in the music. I find this to be a much more natural way of scoring video to audio and usually you end up with something nice you wouldn’t have thought of consciously. I really like Agoraphobia but didn’t want to make a video to that unless the band members were included in it.

Deerhunter - Microcastle from Adam Bruneau on Vimeo.

I was in the back seat of my aunt’s car going up Borestone mountain and riding to the spot where you get out before you hike up it, and playing with the video camera as it was zoomed in really far into the trees, which gave me the idea for the Microcastle video. The speed and variety of colors flying by reminded me of the rush you get at the end of this song, which is a soaring coda after a very peaceful and reserved verse section. For the beginning I wanted some kind of fall still life that shimmered with the sound of the song. The shimmering effect was pulled off by syncing the audio amplitude directly to the opacity of the image, and I ended up using footage from the top of the mountain. Climbing Mount Borestone was like a standard hike until the last couple hundred feet, which was pretty much a vertical climb up the face of the mountain and felt like an epic task. So once we got to the very top, and you could see all over Maine, everything got very still and quiet, and I found a little pool of water with a few plants growing around it. When I went through my footage to pick out what to use for Microcastle, it felt perfect; on top of that mountain on a bright fall day, it was a timeless, concrete, physical manifestation of the song.

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Hot on the heels of a September/October North American tour stint opening up for Stereolab, Atlas Sound (a.k.a. Bradford Cox of Deerhunter) has perpetrated a cool and crystalline remix of “Neonbeanbag” from Stereolab’s latest full-length Chemical Chords.

The so-called “Southern Baptist Remix” isn’t a huge departure from the song’s original version. The tweaks and vibrant textures that Cox adds to the song are used more to flesh out the parts of the song that already exists, rather than turn it into something new.

To listen to Atlas Sound’s remix of Stereolab’s “Neon Beanbag” click here.

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Pitchfork Media has posted a three-part video segment of Daytripping hosted by Bradford Cox of Deerhutner.

Throughout his Daytrip to the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago Bradford talks to Health, Jay Reatard, King Khan, Apples in Stereo, High Places and many more.

Click here to watch part 1.

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Over the weekend Deerhunter unveiled that it was taking on a new guitarist, a young lady by the name of Whitney Petty from Marietta, GA, to round-out the five-piece lineup for the group’s forthcoming tour. Details are still coming in, but you can read more about the story here.

In the meantime there’s a video of Bradford Cox, Lockett Pundt and Petty playing an acoustic version of the song, “Winter Never Stops” on Deerhunter’s blog.

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SOLO DEERHUNTER: Bradford Cox does his thing at his Atlas Sound CD release performance, Tues., Feb. 19.

Click here to read Mosi Reeves’ story on Cox and his new release.

(All photos by Alan Friedman)

(more…)

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It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year since Lenny’s Bar moved into its more spacious new location. On Aug. 25, Atlanta’s best dive bar will be celebrating the one-year anniversary of its move with a night of local bands and DJs. Snowden, Psychic Hearts and Atlas Sound (Bradford Cox of Deerhunter) will bring the rock. KISS Atlanta party-starter Preston Craig will fill the floor with a DJ set. This anniversary party looks to be the best end-of-summer blowout in Atlanta, so be there.

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Band blogs are a dime a dozen. I’m sick of reading about your top five favorite twee pop songs at the moment or what you had for breakfast while touring Oregon. Bands should be thinking about new, creative ways to approach their blogs. That’s why I’d like to take a minute to praise Atlanta’s Deerhunter for going out on a limb and taking a chance with its online journal.

Deerhunter’s blog has barely been up a week, and yet it’s stirred up more controversy in the indie world than Animal Collective’s recent album leak. It all started when the band announced the creation of a “poop journal” in which they would offer photos and descriptions of their daily BMs. Online indie tastemaker PitchforkMedia.com jumped on the story, poking fun at the band’s antics.

On Wednesday, Deerhunter singer Bradford Cox pushed the blog’s boundaries a bit further by making a borderline-pornographic post about his top five fantasy boyfriends. The post was complete with lurid details and nude pictures of the young men he described. Although it was obviously in jest — Huckleberry Finn was No. 3 on the list — dozens of readers were outraged. Consequently, the blog was bombarded with scathing comments from “fans.”

As usual, Pitchfork hopped on the bandwagon, calling the band’s blog one of the “seediest corners” of the Internet and accusing Cox of posting child pornography — an accusation Cox vehemently denies. The controversial entry was promptly taken down from Deerhunter’s blog and replaced with a “fuck you” letter from Cox.

Sure, the poop journal and the fantasy top five list are cringe-worthy features to most of us, but at least they’re not boring. In any case, the band isn’t going to let the naysayers ruin its fun. In his response letter, Cox tells all of his detractors that they “can eat the shit [they’ll] be seeing photos and journal entries about.” I guess that means the poop journal’s still on. Sweet.

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By the time I reached the Earl, signs reading “TONIGHT’S SHOW IS SOLD OUT” were plastered all over the front door. This was bad news for my dumb-ass friends who refused to buy tickets before the show. While they stood outside, devising convoluted plots to infiltrate the venue, I slipped inside, ticket in hand.

The crowd seemed pretty atypical for a Fiery Furnaces show. It was all cargo shorts and sandals. I couldn’t figure out whether the place was packed because of the Fiery Furnaces or the hometown heroes, Deerhunter. Deerhunter took the stage looking like a ragtag gang of world-weary high schoolers (the singer later joked about the guitarist being 12). Under blue lights, the band built up a fog of ambient noise before launching into “Cryptograms,” the title track of its last LP.

The sheer volume of the music sent hoards of cargo shorts retreating back to the bar. The scene reminded me of My Bloody Valentine’s practice of weeding out dilettantes by maxing out the PA. Once the dilettantes were weeded out, the Atlanta natives tore through all of the Fluorescent Grey EP and most of their LP, Cryptograms. The band was able to move from ambient tranquility to freak-out attack mode and vice versa with startling fluidity. The bassist laid down thick, bouncy grooves, while the singer looped and layered his vocals, causing them to swell and dissipate in waves.

By the time my friends had snuck in, vocalist Bradford Cox was dedicating a song to an audience member who claimed it was his birthday. He then proceeded to sing “Flourescent Gray” to the birthday boy, while mimicking Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dance. The Fiery Furnaces may have been headlining, but the show belonged to Deerhunter.

The brother/sister duo of the Fiery Furnaces was accompanied by a guitarist, a drummer, and a percussionist. The extra percussion gave their tunes a funky, jungle-boogie vibe. The set started with a polyrhythmic version of “In My Little Thatched Hut” and continued in the same energetic vein for about an hour. The highlight was a psych-doo-wop version of their sunny pop song, “Here Comes the Summer.” My only complaint was that the band never gave the audience a chance to catch its breath. By the time the band returned for its encore, most of the crowd was gone. Maybe they were there for Deerhunter.

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