The Runners Four
Kill Rock Stars, 2005
rating: 5/5
reviewer: jay


Deerhoof are one of very few bands who, besides making me grin madly, can induce fits of genuine laughter. When you're losing count of the rapid punches on that guitar chord in the middle of "Scream Team," and the only breathing room you can find is in the dizzying vocal interruptions, and you're not even close to getting your bearings, and you think you've never been pummeled harder by Deerhoof – not only do they raise the chord on you, but this one is cut short after 14 of its expected 17 strikes by only the briefest chirp of "Team!", as the guitar immediately plunges back into its initial chord, BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.

The music urgently invites this analysis, and although the details are painfully dry in print, in execution this stuff is laugh-out-loud brilliant.

Deerhoof have always been about that kind of detail (or at least, since 1997). The effort and time it would require to explain to somebody the mechanics of most of their songs makes clear just how much effort and time is put into them in the first place. Deerhoof are consistently able to squeeze more ideas into ten seconds of music than most people use in three minutes, and without crippling their songs in the least. Even though you're continually being suckered left and right by their slight-of-hand, somehow it all makes perfect sense, the kind of perfect sense we don't know exists until Deerhoof introduces us to it.

This brand of arduous premeditation abounds on The Runners Four. It's their gravest and most earnest album to date, two points visually embodied in the anti-Magrittian strictness of the cover art. It's clinically, surgically, algebraically precise, though sometimes only thematically. Consider "O'Malley, Former Underdog," which, despite being the poppiest track here, is marked by one of Deerhoof's most stunning displays of economy in composition. Or take "Spirit Ditties of No Tone," with its alien lockstep of a riff, whose cold, sharp, metallic guitar strings seem to magnetize even the iron in your bloodstream.

The chemical reference is no accident, as there is much about this album that evokes the acrid smell of the laboratory. We're given visions of explosive bubble chambers, strangeness and charm, quantum fireworks, bristling electrons, Van de Graaff generators, phosphenes. The sound of grinding clockwork sprocketry appears in two of the tracks and is suggested by many others. All of this is aided in great part by the caustic, staticky timbre that courses like a synaptic current through most of the album, probably best exemplified by the spacious, shimmering guitar freak-out that fills the last two minutes of "Running Thoughts."

As always, there is a softer side to be found, but rather than taking the form of Deerhoof's established doe-eyed cuteness, The Runners Four relies on the buoyant (and often acoustic) balladry of songs like "Vivid Cheek Love Song," "Odyssey," and "After Me the Deluge." Another major element in this departure is the shocking prevalence of male vocals, which (in addition to allowing for one of Deerhoof's most crushingly beautiful moments, in their first three-part harmony) lends a reserved maturity previously unattainable by shrill Satomi. These unfamiliar falsettos may take some getting used to, but they're wholly necessary for the success of the album.

There are countless specific moments I would love to discuss in greater detail: the 60 seconds of near-silent white space at the end of "Spirit Ditties;" the abstract improvisational groove that leads into "Midnight Bicycle Mystery;" the haunting anomaly that is "Bone-Dry;" the deceptive subtlety of "Odyssey;" the second guitar solo in "Wrong Time Capsule;" the whistling tune in "Running Thoughts;" but I'll spare you. Instead I'll only emphasize that this is nothing short of a monumental piece of work, an imposingly rich, labyrinthine hallucination. It quakes and screams with life. Deerhoof are charging ahead with more momentum than ever. Hooray, O'Malley, run!

1. Chatterboxes
2. Twin Killers
3. Running Thoughts
4. Vivid Cheek Love Song
5. O'Malley, Former Underdog
6. Odyssey
7. Wrong Time Capsule
8. Spirit Ditties of No Tone
9. Scream Team
10. You Can See
11. Midnight Bicycle Mystery
12. After Me the Deluge
13. Siriustar
14. Lemon and Little Lemon
15. Lightning Rod, Run
16. Bone-Dry
17. News From a Bird
18. Spy on You
19. You're Our Two
20. Rrrrrrright

Green Cosmos
Menlo Park, 2005
rating: 4/5
reviewer: jay


I really almost hated Milk Man at first. It was too "song-y," too pristine, unbalanced, and didn't sound anything like Deerhoof. Of course, like everything Deerhoof does, it made sense with time, and nothing has helped illustrate to me why Milk Man was good more than Green Cosmos.

The EP feels even more like just a collection of songs than Milk Man did, but I've learned to look past that. In fact you could almost divide it exactly in half. On one hand you have The Ghost of Deerhoof Past: the gritty, angular, bite-size pieces they've been doing forever, of which they've probably written thousands. Their 1998 single "Come See the Duck" gets wonderfully re-recorded, revealing itself as probably their most frenetic and one of their best songs. The quieter "Malalauma" and "Koneko Kitten" sound straight out of Halfbird, while "Byun" (also previously released on their live Bibidi Babidi Boo) is timelessly Deerhoofian, at home anywhere in their catalog.

Then there's The Ghost of Deerhoof Future, the trio "Green Cosmos," "Spiral Golden Town," and "Hot Mint Air Balloon." None of these songs could have been possible without Milk Man. Each one takes the lush scintillation lurking behind their last three albums (think "Top Tim Rubies," "Sealed With a Kiss," "New Sneakers") to a previously unthinkable territory, and Milk Man was Deerhoof's permission slip to go there.

It's a proven, scientific fact that Deerhoof are incapable of any shred of irony. But there was clearly a stronger sense of self-awareness with Milk Man. Songs like "Giga Dance" and "Dream Wanderer's Tune" aren't the product of fucking around in a basement with ProTools one afternoon. They're the mark not just of a more calculated ambition, but of a new musical stance, one that doesn't just deconstruct, but alchemizes.

And so it is with these three songs, the brightest and most vivid that Deerhoof have ever done by far, and hence, potentially hazardous to anyone who stopped listening after Reveille. The influences are too numerous to detect: samba, mariachi, Indian, video game, tea-house, ragtime -- all coexisting seamlessly in the house that Deerhoof built. You thought Apple O' was fluffy? Green Cosmos is a mountain of dancing pink gumdrops.

Words can't do justice to this sugary bombast, and even after you hear it, you'll remain incredulous until you've played it at least five times (and you will). But if you ever doubted that Deerhoof was capable of surprising you again, Green Cosmos will put those doubts to rest. Deerhoof will always shatter your expectations. Just not in the way you expect.

1. Come See the Duck
2. Green Cosmos
3. Malalauma
4. Spiral Golden Town
5. Hot Mint Air Balloon
6. Koneko Kitten
7. Byun

Bibidi Babidi Boo [internet-only]
Kill Rock Stars/5RC, 2004
rating: 3/5
reviewer: jspicer


There's nothing that matches the raw emotion, power, and excitement of seeing a band live. The tiny nuances of drunken people screaming during all the great crescendos (and usually, right into your ear), the smell of sweat, beer, and smoke -- it all makes for one hell of a showcase. But how do you capture this on disc? This is the challenge that most bands endure when trying to tackle their own live albums, but in the case of Bibidi Babidi Boo, Deerhoof has managed to capture the energy and ferocity of their live shows in a nice and neat 26 minute, 12-track set.

Being the tightest, quirkiest, or prettiest band isn't Deerhoof's concern, yet these qualities shine brightest throughout Bibidi Babidi Boo. It's the band's shortcomings that have endeared fans to their brand of no-nonsense experimental pop for years, and it's fed to you by the mouthful on this release. The live versions may not be exact duplicates of what was set in stone on prior studio albums, but the little mistakes and curveballs are what carry this collection of live tidbits to its ultimate fruition. Not one track stands out of the bunch as being a great track or able to capture your attention beyond mild curiosity, but the set as a whole is cohesive and blunt. Taking into consideration that the album is an amalgam of random live performances culled from the past 3 years, it's amazing that the set has an ebb and flow uncharacteristic of most live discs chalked full of greatest hits and A&R favorites.

Fervor is a hard feeling to capture on a piece of plastic, but Bibidi Babidi Boo achieves this lofty goal with some pizzazz and ingenuity. It won't make many new fans for Deerhoof, but it does solidify them as a band with little limits, whether in the confines of a studio or the spontaneity of the stage.

1. Dummy Discards A Heart
2. Dog On The Sidewalk
3. Milking
4. Panda Panda Panda
5. Giga Dance
6. Desapareceré
7. Rainbow Silhouette Of The Milky Rain
8. Flower
9. The Forbidden Fruits
10. C

Milk Man
Kill Rock Stars/5RC, 2004
rating: 3.5/5
reviewer: mr p


SPIN recently called Deerhoof's Milk Man "A perfect album." Though I wouldn't go that far, Milk Man is surely one of Deerhoof's most focused and engaging releases. If you've heard any of Deerhoof's previous five full-lengths, you already know that the quartet is a one-of-a-kind phenomenon (think phenomenal cosmic powers in an itty bitty living space). They're an anomaly in rock, possessing the uncanny ability to blend pop with avant-garde elements, without sounding forced or mundane. They're the kind of band you'll want around when your fish dies or when your cell phone battery wears out, when they forget to make your order plain.

Although Milk Man retains this distinctive songwriting craft, the album seems to have lost the luster that graced previous releases. Instead of seemingly spontaneous glimpses of awkward pop goodness with an experimental edge, conceptually-grounded tracks shove their way to the fore, leaving behind the cute, eclectic strokes of past. And their more serious, deft execution transforms your "what the fuck are they doing" expression to a "wow, they really planned this shit out" expression. Consequently, the zany, off-the-wall demeanor has been streamlined a bit more and rationalism has been ushered in, elements that first reared its head on 2003's Apple O'. Deerhoof now seems just as concerned with the audience's reaction as having a fun time.

Nonetheless, Milk Man is still fun to the max, as the late, great Wesley Willis might've said. From "Desapareceré" to "Giga Dance," I still find it hard to believe that any band could write such instant classics without resorting to overblown gimmicks or shock-tactics. Employing awkward time signatures ("That Big Orange Sun Run Over Speed Light"), unbalanced melodies ("Song of Sorn"), unique polyphonic structures ("Rainbow Silhouette of the Milky Man"), and just plain weirdness ("Dog in the Sidewalk") Milk Man acts like a pedophile with a pocket full of candy, dropping treats as long as you stay on the ride. Predictably, the album is most similar to Apple O', but while Apple O' seemed to have a somewhat lethargic quality, Milk Man sounds fresh and fully inviting. And it's a lot better.

It's hard to take a band like Deerhoof seriously, especially after such consistently madcap releases. But with Milk Man and Apple O', the band forces you to reconsider their objectives, or at the very least, reconsider your assumptions of what their objectives were in the first place. Perhaps this is where Deerhoof has been heading toward all along. Or perhaps they're in a transitory phase into something bigger and bolder, while the rest of us immature eggheads hold on to the puerile offerings of Deerhoof past. Whatever the case, Milk Man is tight from beginning to end, and hell if I'm going to miss out just because I'm a nostalgic sap.

1. Milk Man
2. Giga Dance
3. Desapareceré
4. Rainbow Silhouette of the Milky Man
5. Dog on the Sidewalk
6. C
7. Milking
8. Dream Wanderer's Tune
9. Song of Sorn
10. That Big Orange Sun Run Over Speed Light
11. New Sneakers