Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest

Bradford Cox, like John Lennon before him, draws inspiration from the entire history of rock and roll, going all the way back to its earliest days in the 1950s. But whereas Lennon built fairly directly (though quite significantly, of course) on that early history, Cox passes it through the distortionary filter provided by the many decades since.

This line of creativity, which runs through all of his recent work, both with Deerhunter and under the Atlas Sound banner, continues on “Halcyon Digest,” with absolutely no sign yet of diminishing returns. In fact, by elaborating as well on the themes — nostalgia for times past and regret over unfulfilled youthful ambitions — also explored in his recent collaboration with Noah Lennox, “Halcyon Digest” represents perhaps the most compelling expression of this idea to date.

Often overlooked are the other great talents in Deerhunter, the band. Below, guitarist Lockett Pundt provides the vocals for “Desire Lines,” one of the new lp’s best tracks.

Deerhunter – Rainwater Cassette Exchange

Five more tracks of the same great stuff. I call them “haunting melodies for warm, spring nights.” Kind of like “Winterreise,” only for spring not winter.

Also, in case you haven’t seen it yet, there’s a very nice video here of Deerhunter with Kim and Kelley Deal playing the Amps’ song “Bragging Party.” Though this hadn’t occured to me before, it’s easy to see now how many influences those two bands have in common.