4. Deerhunter - Microcastles

It's interesting that Deerhunter are labelled art/psych/ambient/post punk. Punk seeks to agitate and provoke, while Deerhunter's fragmented ambience and recondite lyrics seems to gravitate toward a certain calmness and stasis that has eluded them yet. Their sonic explorations on breakout sophomore Cryptograms seem to confirm this suspicion - Deerhunter are not so much interested in inventing new sounds as using inventive instrumentation to achieve the sort of subversive pop bliss that Radiohead have mastered. Yes, Deerhunter are as much pop connoisseurs as they are laptop experimentalists, and the truimph of Microcastles is that it reconciles these two disparate elements, bringing to the fore the pop sensibilities that Cryptograms shredded.
Accordingly, the music is appreciably warmer, bathed in gauzy orange hues of snug guitar solos and peppy drumming. The character of this bolder sound is made more apparent in the minimalist album setting - the sunlit psychpop of Agoraphobia segues into the unbearably lonely tension on Never Stops, the frenzied explosion of noise and drums out of murky guitar chords on the title track gives way to pattering percussion and mourning windchimes on Calvary Scars before fracturing into the rueful argepggios of Green Jacket. Elsewhere, shoegaze squalls and narcotic drones propagate the infectious misdirection we've come to love from Deerhunter. Though frontman Bradford Cox's outsized persona is less evident on Microcastles, the feverish dream-pop he surveyed in solo act Atlas Sound has clearly influenced the band's aesthetics.
This shift towards directness parallels yet contrasts the lyrical message. On the outlook, Microcastles might come across as somewhat cold and impersonal, a quixotic fantasy of freedom from aging, isolation, and hurt. Yet it also suggests a dreary, apathetic resignation with a life of frustration and confusion, curiously most evident on the most accessible tracks such as single Nothing Ever Happens: "I never saw it coming / Waiting for something / Nothing". Cox endeavours to find solace in his art, sacrificing his disease-twisted body for it. "I take what I can / I give what I have left" - his personal message of a lonely existence of insults and irreverence is tempered by a hope for change, and that salvation may be glimpsed in such fleeting moments of beauty.

Notes: I haven't had a chance to listen to sister album Weird Era Cont. Cox suffers from Marfan syndrome. Cole Alexander from Atalanta compatriots The Black Lips features on the disorienting monologue of acid-pop cornerstone Saved by Old Times. Sorry about the 1-day break.

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