Deerhunter – He Would Have Laughed
Deerhunter makes rather wonderful winter music. For three of the last four winters – I spent the fourth in a place where winter doesn’t exist – their singles, EPs and long-players have dominated my snow-season soundtracks. Ethereal soundscapes. Abstract, repetitious, but somehow tangible lyrics. It works. It works especially well around this time of year, trust me. From Wikipedia I recently learnt that “[Deerhunter frontman Bradford] Cox’s method of creating music is stream-of-consciousness, and he does not write lyrics in advance.” That makes sense after you listen to their music, but it’s also an amazing achievement when you consider songs like “Nothing Ever Happened” or this year’s “Memory Boy.”
Bradford Cox is the leader of Deerhunter. He also fronts a project called Atlas Sound, which is similarly excellent. He is incredibly prolific. Brad has Marfan Syndrome, which means he’s very tall and skinny and strange-looking and doesn’t feel well most of the time. From his singing and his blog and interviews, he comes across as an extremely nice, shy, humane person. He puts a lot of his time and being into music. It’s worth it. I think it would be lovely to be his friend. He seems like he’d be a very good friend.
Anyway, this is my favourite song of the year.
[Get Halcyon Digest. And listen to it with a good pair of headphones. Your winter will be substantially enriched, or your money back. Those last four words were a joke, by the way…]
(follow @elrob)