Appeared on Fri 22 May 09 @ The Black Box | Belfast (With guests The Jane Bradfords and Sian Alice Group)
Since 2001, Deerhunter have produced three LPs and four EPs worth of astonishing “ambient punk” (their own description), picking up devotees and different musicians along the way.
4AD’s first involvement with the band was to release Microcastle, their excellent third album in October 2008. The follow-up to 2006’s acclaimed Cryptograms, it was recorded over the course of a week at Rare Book Studios in Brooklyn, New York with Nicolas Verhes (whose other production credits include Les Savy Fav and Silver Jews) and was created as a four-piece, consisting of Bradford Cox, Lockett Pundt, Joshua Fauver and Moses Archuleta. Most tracks feature Cox on lead vocals except ‘Agoraphobia’ and ‘Neither of Us, Uncertainly,’ where guitarist Pundt is the main provider and ‘Saved by Old Times’, which includes a vocal collage by Cole Alexander of The Black Lips.
In addition to Microcastle, the band added Weird Era Cont., a bonus disc of brand new material. An album in it’s own right, the band wanted Weird Era Cont. to appear with little fanfare and as a surprise on release day. It’s more than just bonus material though; it’s further proof of this band’s prolific and unerring ability to make timeless music.
Critics and fans seemed to approve of the two-disc package; Time Out heaped much praise on it, “(Deerhunter) weave ethereal, wraithlike songs that touch the heights of Flaming Lips, Pavement and My Bloody Valentine,” while Pitchfork scored it an impressive 9.2, citing it to be a “call to arms,” and Mojo went as far as saying it “could be 4AD’s best release in well over a decade.”
With guests The Jane Bradfords and Sian Alice Group
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