DeMark................“Deerhunter: A Incoherent Fanboygasm”

The date is March 2nd, 2012. I’m seventeen years old. Atlas Sound, the moniker under which Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox performs and records his solo work, is booked to play a show at the Cedar Cultural Center. I go, dragging with me a friend who’s been to, at most, one or two other concerts. After some forgettable opening band and future Deerhunter member Frankie Broyles play their opening sets, Bradford comes on in all black sporting a ski mask. He plays selections from his recent release Parallax for about an hour until a heckler’s words push him over the line. Someone from the crowd yelled “Play ‘My Sharona,’” resulting in the strangest hour of live music my friend and I have ever experienced. Bradford’s hour-long rendition of “My Sharona” revolutionized my conception of what forms punk could take. This was a rebellion against society itself, an act of complete independence from all external pressures while still succumbing to them. Moreover, it was the Most-Deerhunter-Fucking-Thing I’ve ever seen. The following is an (ultimately silly) attempt to determine the “Deerhunter-ness” of each major Deerhunter project (rules: must have been released physically at some point. Must have been recorded in-studio, not a live recording. I remembered to include it) on a scale from one to fve sharonas, accompanied by some writing summing up my feelings on it. [NOTE: this is all totally subjective and at best debatably serious I’m sorry I didn’t give proper justice to your favorite Deerhunter album don’t write about me in the CLAP].

Unrequited Narcissist (2005)

where am i? i don’t remember going out tonight but here i am what drugs am i on? this doesnt feel like any drug i know should i be dancing? i don’t remember how. should I be meditating? can you dance and meditate at the same time? the voice my head the beat the VOICE MY HEAD (the beat) the voice my head the VOice my drink

sex

loop eyes open touch i can never go home drifting... drifting huh? jesus how long can this go on i think i’ve been here all my life 3 SHARONAS OUT OF 5 gears move

simultaneous endless

sleep night

morning loop

FUZE Orange Blossom White Tea

Turn It Up, Faggot (2005)

Despite how thoroughly the band may have disowned this record, I’m surprised by how much I enjoy it. You can feel what would become Cryptograms poking out through the fuzz, but what’s missing is the subtlety with which Deerhunter would come to treat their music with. A key part of “Deerhunter-ness” (which I guess I’m defning as I go) is existing within some framework to subvert, and the abrasiveness for abrasiveness’ sake of Turn it Up, Faggot misses that element. Not a bad album by any means, but clearly the work of a band that had yet to fnd its voice. Bradford’s early leaning towards hypnotic repetitiveness comes out so strongly it washes everything else out. Turning every knob to 10 is not a way to make a coherent statement 2 SHARONAS OUT OF 5

Cryptograms (2007)

The frst “real” Deerhunter project and the frst to feature guitarist/singer Lockett Pundt, Cryptograms continues down the path of hypnotic psychedelia with far more interesting results. Themes of painful nostalgia overwhelm, a feeling that Bradford often goes back to in his later work. The band’s pop sensitivities are not yet fully developed, but as they play with a cleaner sound, they become more relatable and thus more potent in their ability to break our expectations. Probably my least favorite “real” Deerhunter LP, but defnitely Deerhunter-y in its own way. 3.5 SHARONAS OUT OF 5

Fluorescent Gray EP (2007)

Is Lockett the one in the band with the best pop songwriting chops? Judging by the direction the band went in post-Turn it Up it really seems that way. More of the Cryptograms aesthetic, with one secretly astounding song (“Like New”) thrown in. I was sixteen, I was sixteen, I was sixteen, I was sixteen, I was sixteen. 3.5 SHARONAS OUT OF 5

Microcastle (2008)

A fairly radical departure from Cryptograms, Microcastle sees Deerhunter settling into a sound they would expand on for the next few years. Songwriting matches intent and energy as a strength, allowing the band to fnally challenge the pop mindset from the inside. While songs like “Nothing Ever Happened” do show the old abrasive punk spirit, the only hit against the Deerhunter-ness of Microcastle is that it plays just a bit on the safe side. Ultimately one of Deerhunter’s best albums, but not quite there in terms of fnding the rebellion that the band would come to represent. 3.5 SHARONAS OUT OF 5

Weird Era Cont. (2008)

Honestly, pretty much all the criticisms and strengths from Microcastle more or less translate. While the sound is very much different, Weird Era Cont. doesn’t do much to challenge or push the listener that their earlier work doesn’t do already. What makes the difference in Sharona-rating from Microcastle is how fucking raw it is. The album was thrown together in a handful of months after Bradford accidentally leaked Microcastle to the public, and a lot of it has a hazy demo-like feeling. Nostalgia is invoked time and time again as a device to communicate the angst underlying. The results are beautiful. 4 SHARONAS OUT OF 5

Rainwater Cassette Exchange (2009)

The beginning of Deerhunter hitting what I would believe to be their “stride.” Finally, they did what they were leaning towards on every song on Microcastle and Weird Era Cont. and fully realized the aesthetic of the sixties as imagined by someone who was born long after the sixties were over. Bradford’s dripping sexuality on “Game of Diamonds” hints at the direction they’ll take in Halcyon Digest. Sonically, no massively new adventures, but the subjective “feel” of the album is far more gotten across than in further works. A window into what’s to come. 4.5 SHARONAS OUT OF 5

Halcyon Digest (2010)

The frst Deerhunter album I listened to, this one will always be emotionally resonant. Sonically, they take an extremely gentle, layered approach. How can that be punk, you ask? My answer: tension and ambiguity. The only thing more challenging to the American public than sexlessness is nondirectional sexuality, and Bradford’s sexuality caresses you from start to fnish. This is something that it would be useless to try to express in words - just listen to the fucking album. Intimately relatable, it becomes you and breaks you. 5 SHARONAS OUT OF 5

Monomania (2013)

The sexuality of “T.H.M.” The pop brilliance of “Sleepwalking.” The longing of “Nitebike.” The utter destruction of “Monomania.” To quote something Cisco wrote in another issue of NoFi, this album is punk. There’s nothing else I can say about it. DEERHUNTER SCALE OUT OF ORDER