ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 27TH 2010


Only a few bands are making albums that not only sustain a relevant output but actually better themselves with each successive release. Deerhunter are one of those bands. Even with side project Atlas Sound, frontman Bradford Cox has proven that the heart and soul of Deerhunter is rooted in a shared experience of emotional reflection. Microcastle proved that they’re not short on ambition and was a bold leap forward from Cryptograms’ development of two halves. One year on and it’s obvious that Halcyon Digest was an even further leap forward. This growth and alarming maturity doesn’t happen too often. It’s common to find bands ‘furthering’ their sound when really they’re moving in non-too-circular spheres, but with Deerhunter it’s a case of working in two very spectacular circles. It’s interesting to witness the to-and-fro releases of an Atlas Sound record one year, followed by a Deerhunter one the next. With Atlas Sound’s Parallax arriving in six weeks from this one year retrospective, it’ll be interesting to see which elements have been absorbed since Logos as a result of this record.


Halcyon Digest is by no means an immediate record. It takes time to reveal itself and is frequently beautiful to experience when you’re in the thick of it. Take it away and you’re longing to hear it again. It’s a record that should be heard in its entirety and most definitely worth holding out for. By that, I mean an album that you should wait to hear when it’s officially released as opposed to listening to its lead single months before the rest of it arrives, or clinging to the odd dodgy leak. Now it doesn’t matter, because it’s a year old, but it’s best noting for their next record. Sigur Rós were one of those bands, where it was worth investing the patience for Takk… and particularly ( ) and somehow you heard a singular, monumental suite as opposed to ten really fantastic songs. Whilst there’s nothing particularly ambient here as on Cryptograms (or even in the same definition as the Icelandic quartet’s cathartic declarations), Earthquake is pretty comparable all the same. It’s an illusive opener which builds gradually, all post-rock atmosphere and dreamy reverb swirling around, gathering pace bit by bit with feedback gathering between verses like filtered air, or slowly sucking up liquid through a straw. It’s apparent even this early on that the production level here is cavernous and incredibly detailed.


Don’t Cry and Revival are more indicative of a distinct musical style that befits the nature of the album as a whole, particularly the latter and how easily it rolls forth. The two are equally less than three minutes in length and the way they coalesce to form a singular unit befits their dual craftsmanship. Moreover, it now becomes apparent that Earthquake acts as a curveball and has more in common with the production on Helicopter. Cox was clearly touched by the tragedy of the Russian Dimitry Marakov and sings from his perspective. Its landslide of shoegazed atmospherics give prominence to the magnificent use of instrumentational pauses, which wallows like a concealed blanket of haze. Almost like helicopter blades chopping through the fuzz as it tries to form an identifiable path for itself, it also feels deliberately repetitive, where melodies rotate in circles as the same motifs and lyrical shifts come back but stronger each time. It has become a stone cold highlight on a record where, if not this, another song often takes the glory.


That song is called Desire Lines. It’s not even the longest song on the album but somehow feels so due to its sprawling guitar pattern that feels like it circles the equator in a few minutes. Locket Pundt is integral in creating the plunging depths of Halcyon Digest, but nowhere else does his guitar work impress so much as here. It’s truly his moment to shine and he triumphs in opening up the song to great, airplane hangar proportions. Vocals feel prematurely terminated to make way for the extended outro, where a simple shift in chord serves to highlight its onward momentum and acts as a means of prolonging its trajectory. It’s the most free falling moment on the record and is the sound of a band letting go of the reins to allow something unexpected and breathtaking to manifest. It also verifies the huge awareness of loss and nostalgia at work here, with themes of a very introvert and intimate nature. Sailing inspires a similar sense of going around in circles as Cox sings of sailing on a boat for days without food or water. As the song slowly shifts it’s clear that this analogy implies a reassessing of what’s important, for example, in the way rules and regulations are different out on the water than on land. Perhaps nothing really matters (“When there’s no law / You’ve done nothing wrong”). A languorous state lingers, fading in and out to match its lyrical ambiguity. ”Did you stick with me? Let me jog my memory,” Cox exclaims at the beginning of its successor, the ghostly Memory Boy. It feels like a question of endurance. For those who stuck it out and maybe felt immersed, perhaps Did you sink with me? would’ve been a more choice phrase. It’s rooted in a recalling of sketchy past events, the way in which sensations of time and place are crystal clear but the narrative itself is comparatively fragmented. This summary of memories is frequently dark, not necessarily ‘halycon’ in the true sense of the word and informs us of what Cox himself chooses to hold on to.


Which ultimately makes Halcyon Digest a scattershot collection of carefully edited thoughts and emotions. But in truth, what does Cox actually reveal? True, he is as passionate as any contemporary indie rock frontman, but his intentions are skewered by an abstract vocabulary that will be perplexing to an outside audience. If these chronciles feel arbitrary then the music is absolute. He Would Have Laughed is the record’s palatial closer, another song entrenched in the past which recalls the passing of Cox’s good friend Jay Reatard. A simple acoustic guitar motif is repeated over and over with electronic and percussive elements thrown into the pot as rhythm builds, somewhere between back and forth and past and present. It’s strangely fascinating how Cox positions himself in this uncomfortable location of neither here nor there. The advantage to this is a permanent tangibilty where nothing is really formed or concluded, in a constant state of flux, with the song itself coming to an unexpected close.


The majority of Halcyon Digest feels like a beautiful waking dream, like a record constantly playing and looping itself in some empty room where people left the party a long time ago and only you can hear it. Upon reflection, the chronology of the record appears somewhat noteworthy. The tracklisting is constantly switching between its focal supports - Earthquake, Desire Lines, Helicopter, He Would Have Laughed - and the more idealised observations of Don’t Cry, Revival, Basement Scene, Fountain Stairs, et al. This is pivotal to the aforementioned flux and is the main reason that makes the music here so compelling to return to when heard in sequence, since it not only flows but sways back and forth, picking up momentum only to dispel it. It’s not just the ‘halcyon days’ of the past that are revered, and Halcyon Digest is proof enough that memories more dark and unsettling can provide a very substantial catharsis indeed.