Deerhunter
BIOGRAPHY
Atlanta, Georgia’s Deerhunter have properly been an item since their formation in 2001, the result of the creative coming together of inimitable frontman/guitarist Bradford Cox and drummer Moses Archuleta. Whilst he was living in the offices of Die Slaughterhouse Records, Colin Mee was next to join the band alongside bassist Justin Bosworth, the latter tragically dying of head injuries inflicted by a skateboard accident in 2004. Bosworth played only on the ‘Deerhunter/Alphabets Split’, a single that came out shortly before their debut album. Bass duties were subsequently handed by Joshua Fauver, though the shadow of Bosworth’s passing was cast long over their debut LP, 2005’s Turn It Up, Faggot, a dark, down and cathartic record dedicated to their deceased friend.
A highschool friend of Cox, Lockett Pundt was asked to join the band on guitar after the release of Turn It Up, joining Deerhunter on tours with the likes of Lightning Bolt and Gang Gang Dance, and with them as they later recorded a whole album’s worth of material with Samura Lubelski in New York. These sessions however remain largely unreleased, the product of a physically and mentally less than happy time for our man Bradford, though a few snippets have been leaked via the band’s blog. Such snippets found many admirers, not least the band Liars, who encouraged the band to re-record the music.
Buoyed by their support, Deerhunter recorded their second LP proper Cryptograms in just two days in November 2005, though it took until 2007 for Kranky Records to release it. Though the critical reception was nigh on ecstatic, there was still a sadness permeating the album’s luscious swathes of ambient-punk – a dedication to a deceased friend, Bradley Ira Harris, was included in the liner notes for a second record in a row.
On something of a prolific creative spree, a few months after Cryptograms came the Flourescent Grey EP in May of 2007. After briefly being kicked out of Deerhunter due to what his fellow bandmates saw as a lack of dedication, guitarist Colin Mee rejoined for the group’s next recording sessions, which would eventually birth a double album of sorts – Microcastle and Weird Era Continued. The former was released in October of 2008, though had been available on file sharing networks since the previous May. As a reward to fans who had waited for the record to come out physically, the group included a whole other album’s worth of material with the CD release – Weird Era Continued – which turned out to be equal at least in quality to its parent album. The set became the first Deerhunter release to dent the Billboard album chart, debuting at 123. Despite its success, Colin Mee once again left the band, to be replaced on guitar by Whitney Petty, a former cheerleader at Cox’s high school, though she only lasted a few months. The band, presumably exhausted both creatively and physically, went on hiatus.
Yet a hiatus for Deerhunter certainly doesn’t involve not doing much. During his time off, Cox reignited his Atlas Sound project, releasing the critically lauded Logos, Fauver concentrated on his lable Army of Bad Luck records, Moses Archuleta went to culinary school, and Lockett Pundt formed Lotus Plaza, another side project who released The Floodlight Collective in March of 2009.
Hiatuses are funny things – as regularly as they are genuine breaks, they’re the death of many a fine band. Deerhunter’s was thankfully characterised by its brevity. After ramping up the touring and wowing the likes of All Tomorrow’s Parties and Primavera Sound festivals (footage of which can be seen below), in June of 2009, the band recorded Halcyon Digest, their fine, fourth/fifth record (depending on how you look at it) that joyously gets a release this week on the ever-marvellous 4AD records.
VIDEOS
ROCKFEEDBACK TV – DEERHUNTER ON STAGE @ PRIMAVERA SOUND 2009, BARCELONA
HELICOPTER
REVIVAL
LINKS