A hazy ode to the end of life.
We’ve been getting hints that Deerhunter were gearing up to release some new music. While the experimental rockers haven’t put out a record since 2015, they had a new cassette of instrumental music available at shows on their spring tour this year. Now, we get a proper new single in the harpsichord-laden “Death in Midsummer.”
In a fitting match for Deerhunter, it combines somewhat trippy, upbeat music to sing about coming to terms with your own inevitable death. As Bradford Cox sings, “And in time, you will see your own life fade away.” All the while, that lovely harpsichord slides along, building up to a fantastic, fuzzy guitar solo. The song sounds like it was pulled from the late 1960s/early 1970s, when music could be anything, when joy sat alongside anxiety. That’s where Deerhunter lives.
“Death in Midsummer” will be on the band’s upcoming album, Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?, out on Jan. 18, 2019.