One Track Mind

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Yesterday, Atlanta’s Deerhunter released the five song Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP. The title track contains elements both focused (e.g. a run time of just under two and a half minutes) and fuzzy (the hazy murk shrouding the notes points to the band’s self-professed influences: My Bloody Valentine, The Birthday Party, Brian Eno), like a marriage of Phil Spector’s and the shoegaze movement’s respective walls of sound. “Rainwater Cassette Exchange” filters Brill building pop through dusty canyon rock and a couple buttons of peyote as rhythms shift over snake charmer guitar riffs.

It is an easy pill to swallow since “Rainwater Cassette Exchange” feels so self-contained. This, of course, lends itself to the abbreviated format of the EP, but also makes it more digestible in this setting, as a free-standing single. Brandon Cox’s lazily fluttering vocals are contrasted nicely with the more rhythm section-dominated passages and the song is nicely packaged through effectively production.

This song may not have the swagger to tower over its neighbors, but it is a strong, compelling statement by a band that has undergone a good deal of change over the past eight years.