THE MAN, THE KING, THE GIRL

DEERHOOF continued their wildly experimental noise rock sound combined with the cutesy twee pop vocals of Satomi Matsuzaki on their second album THE MAN, THE KING, THE GIRL. Like their previous album and EPs, the music is a combination of the harsh atonal dissonant noise punk of Rob Fisk on guitar and Greg Saunier on drums with the entire emphasis on creating the most surreal soundscapes humanly possible. Of course all of these madness becomes even weirder as Matsuzaki flirts her childish innocence with a Cibo Matto flair and in tandem DEERHOOF create one of the weirdest albums of the 90s as they take the noise rock approach of bands like Sonic Youth and torture the compositions into amorphous creations that sound more like a Sun Ra album gone really wild back in the day at least in terms of sheer 'out-there-ness.'

While DEERHOOF would tame their sound immensely on their later albums, on THE MAN, THE KING, THE GIRL the trio remains in utter reckless abstraction thus embodying the true definition of noise rock only with more sophisticated methods of escapism from the norm than the typical band associated with the term. In this regard they are closer to the anarchic noisy freneticism of early Boredoms and fellow San Franciscans Caroliner with their desire to avoid normalcy at all costs. However despite the weird for the sake of weird being the main staple on board, some tracks like 'Polly Bee' come off as simple little indie pop rock songs that wouldn't sound out of place on a Guided By Voices or Sebadoh type of indie rock album.

The beauty isn't necessary the abstract break-ever-musical-rule element embedded in every untuned note and abused beat with DEERHOOF at this stage, but its really with the creative diversity with which they carry these wild antics out. Like any good avant-artist out there, the band learned how to create recognizable patterns of sound under the seemingly formless mass of sound. 'Gold On Black' even has a Hendrix-esque riff to accompanied by some sort of rhythmic gamelan sounding tones, whereas 'Gore In Rut' exhibits a veritable garage band jam complete with snarling feedback and Princess Matsuzaki daintily repeating 'Bunny, bunny, bunny' amidst the chaotic feedback-fest that surrounds her thus exhibiting her most twee pop performance on the album.

While some tracks like 'For Those Of Us On Foot' are purely non-musical with only intermittent pointillistic cymbals and vocal weirdness emerging, most tracks are quite grounded in some form of rock music but have been processed by the musicians' bizarre rendition of reality leaving one of the most surreal experiences even within the highly experimental canon of DEERHOOF themselves. It goes without saying that DEERHOOF is an acquired taste that will only appeal to those who can enjoy music that revels in breaking all the rules and delivers a hefty dose of shock and awe in its wake. While this is the kind of stuff that may be experienced as repulsive by many, the acclamation of such styles of music has left me under its spell and i find THE MAN, THE KING, THE GIRL to be a very brilliant escape into the demented yet brilliant minds of those who insist on creating a style of music never heard before.

One of the earliest additions to my The List representing new art, probably all the way back in ~2018 (I can't say), this has been quite a long time coming. Deerhoof first entered my view via a few tracks off their fourteenth studio album, Mountain Moves (2017), in all likelihood because it had then recently come out. And now, the push comes from a slightly different angle: not yet appearing in their lineup here, and long gone from the band when I got to them, Art-Psych multi-instrumentalist Chris Cohen (his involvement in tandem with his early-00s avant-minimal project The Curtains). I seriously can't wait to get into his stuff, but from the little solo material I've heard, I can't help but recommend him already. Anyway... I did find it interesting that Deerhoof is the brainchild of here-drummer Rob Fisk, as, despite this, only early additions Satomi Matsuzaki (vocals) and Greg Saunier (drums) are still out there doing it, the only consistent members (to be clear, sans-Fisk since '99). Easing on in at sub-29-minutes is Deerhoof's so-called debut LP, The Man, the King, the Girl (1997).

At 13 tracks (18 total with bonus live material), running at such a 'speed', the majority are 1 to 2 and a half minutes long. Reality check for myself: their early material was in large part Noise Rock. It can be pretty fun, but as to be expected with Noise, there's obvious subversion sonically but not so much compositionally (generally). To speak to my standards for rating albums broadly like this, on a track-by-track basis the best I can allot is a 2.5/5.0. "Gore in Rut", the opener, is just about one such track. It's then followed, though, by a most off-kilter number, "A-Town Test Site". There is promise even here. I'm not in love with it sonically, but "The Pickup Bear" picks up from there.

Onto our longest track of the whole, "Tiger Chain", an avant-garde approach for sure, balancing startling Noise with near-complete silence. Considering it harsh (and not for me), especially once vocals come in; juxtaposed in a somewhat funny way to me are these light, poppy vocals. Super-effected guitar chimes and buzzes periodically on "Queen of the Mole People", with a chill, light-Psych feel to boot. "Sophie" to follow has the chunkiest, heaviest not-so-Noise so far, the instruments seemingly physically plunking down heavy (the best thus far, 3.5/5.0). I wonder if the title of the next is a reference to a particularly famed, then relatively new Lo-Fi Pop classic (Guided By Voices' Bee Thousand, 1994), "Polly Bee" hooked me easy over a neat 2 minutes ('poly' from the Greek for 'much' or 'many'; just a thought).

I zoned out there, but "Itchy P-Pads" naturally brings you into some sort of other reality, albeit a strange, loud affair (3.5/5.0). Once again juxtaposing loud with soft, next is the light, airy, certainly Lo-Fi "Bendinin". Then it's more quirky jerkin' on "Gold On Black", a quick track that packs such a punch, I'm bolding it here for your eyeholes to perceive more readily. Spunky, weird and fun. A harsh drone follows on "The Comedian Flavorists"; interesting title. Not sure the quietness of "For Those of Us on Foot" is drone-like, but it's certainly interesting in relation to the previous; this is definitely one of those experiments where I'm pleased to hear it in the context of an album, and would be fine to never hear it again. Finally we have "Wheely Freed Speaks to the People" (3.5/5.0). It's got a freewheelin' College Rock-Alt-like feel, though increasingly riffing out like '70s Hard Rock. Solid closer!

It's a lot of back and forth on this album, so don't be too afraid of gettin' jerked around on it, but, for me, hard to complain about a short-winded album. Insinuated from the top, those other (unrated above) most enjoyable tracks worth hearing still, truly regardless of the site's focus, are the following: "Queen of the Mole People", "Polly Bee".

A rounded up True Rate of 2.5/5.0