Deerhoof's eighth full-length ought to be chaotic. Its parts are disparate
— Satomi Matsuzaki's tiny bird-like voice, the very muscular, distorted
guitars of Chris Cooper and John Dieterich, and the complicated tonal
percussion Greg Saunier uses to underline and comment on off-kilter
melodies — and they shouldn't come together smoothly, or indeed at
all. Still, they do, with fractured dreamworld logic. It's like a parallel
universe where sugary girl-groups coexist with barbed-wire post-punk
rhythm sections, and juddering eighth-note guitars blast across post-rock
landscapes like laser guns and ricochet off weird-shaped rocks and plant
materials.
Like Milkman, this latest album is very cleanly produced, letting
each song's distinct elements breathe and have impact. Sometimes, as on
opening "Chatterboxes," the band moves in unison, with nervous guitar chords
echoing Matsuzaki's fragile melodies. At others, opposing sounds seem to
collide, setting off sparks and dissonances, yet remaining firmly anchored
in pop context. "O'Malley, Former Underdog" is like this, putting a
dizzying array of ideas in play, yet sounding like a deconstructed,
prism-fractured Apples in Stereo song.
When Satomi is singing — that is, most of the time — Deerhoof create a
wonderful tension between loud and soft, high and low. Her singing works
in piccolo range, pure tone without audible emotion, breath or
vibrato. Perhaps because it's so high, her very soft voice floats above
abrasive, rock-oriented instruments ("Twin Killers") or waits for breaks in
the momentum to make itself heard ("Vivid Cheek Love Song"). Her duel with
abstract percussive lines and fast-picked guitars in "Spirit Ditties of No
Tone" is perhaps the most exciting example of divergent, fast-moving parts
that somehow mesh into a single machine, though the free-jazz leaning
"Running Thoughts" has the same combination of challenge and reward. It
sounds like an entirely different band when the men in the group take over
singing, less frantic and contradictory, more thoughtful and consciously
beautiful. "Odyssey," with its slow-strummed guitar and bare vocals, is a
tranquil island in this challenging album, and "Bone-Dry," later on, glows
with mysterious loveliness.
The Runners Four is much longer than previous Deerhoof albums, with
20 songs and nearly an hour of material, but unlike many extended CDs,
there's no point where you listen and say, "OK, they're running out of
ideas." In fact, the album's final cut, "Rrrrrrright," is an album
highlight. Here the bass and drums move together in a chugging, staccato
juggernaut, while swooping classic-rock guitar lines slash in and out of
the mix. Satomi's impossibly delicate voice bobs and weaves over the whole
thing, insouciantly "nah-nah-nah-nah-ni"-ing over a roiling thundercloud of
rock 'n' roll distortion. In a way, the song is a metaphor for the entire
album, its structure and melody unsettling and unexpected, yet transmuted
into certainty with sheer energy, intelligence and imagination.
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