Monday, January 30, 2006  

Deerhoof

Washington Post, Monday, January 30, 2006; Page C05

Indie rock that traffics in overwhelming amateurism -- real or willful -- is generally the sort of music that makes a critic question his profession and count the seconds he'll never get back in his life. The man known as Le Ton Mite, one of the opening acts Saturday at the Black Cat for San Francisco's art-rock quartet Deerhoof, owes me about 35 minutes. Looking like a mixture of young Allen Ginsberg and really old Allen Ginsberg, Le Ton Mite warbled atonal, faux-naive tunes that he described as "the songs you wish you heard as a child." I'm glad my childhood was spent with Kiss and Donna Summer.

But Deerhoof uses insouciance like a red herring: While singer-bassist-guitarist Satomi Matsuzaki may whisper-squeak off-key of ducks and bunnies, the boys in her band play their instruments with unbridled energy and, yes, skill. The group's 2005 CD "The Runners Four" is one of the most strangely beautiful, deranged but accessible indie-rock records to come out in some time. Like the band's 70-minute, 15-song Black Cat set, the CD isn't always pretty or successful, but it is suspenseful.

Deerhoof's sound is like a live mash-up: It can engage in the Who's primal power and Cream-y jamming only to be cut off by a tight surf-guitar riff stolen from the Fall or a tense drone straight from Can's Krautrock playbook. Drummer Greg Saunier hits his kit as hard as Keith Moon, and guitarists Chris Cohen and John Dieterich can launch into spindly interplay that sounds like punk-jazz. Nothing seems to last longer than four or eight bars, and the music is a collective spasm of sounds and riffs culled from multiple genres. When it works, as on the Stereolab-ish "Running Thoughts," there's undeniable freshness; when it's merely a car wreck, as on some of the longer instrumental pieces, you can forgive Deerhoof for at least giving it the old college try. Le Ton Mite? Not so much. --Christopher Porter

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