New Song by Deerhunter, "Breaker" (New Album Out October 16 & NYC Tour Dates December 8/9)

Deerhunter pals Cox and Pundt 

Indie rock band Deerhunter is ready with its seventh album, Fading Frontier, due October 16 via 4AD. The first single, "Snakeskin," struts along with funky swagger yet the latest song "Breaker" finds a sweet spot of brightly nuanced harmonies and brightly lit production values. It features a first ever duet between frontman/singer Brandon Cox and best bud guitarist Lockett Pundt, a vocal mind meld endearingly depicted in the video. Check out the video below as directed by Cox with additional photography by Pundt.

The new collection was created by the band's founding members in their hometown of Atlanta -- Cox, Pundt and drummer Moses Archuleta -- with bassist Josh McKay. Production duties were shared with Ben H. Allen III, who has provided an assist since 2010's Halcyon Digest. Deerhunter will soon embark on a world tour in support of the new release, with stops at Irving Plaza in NYC on December 8 and Warsaw in Brooklyn on December 9. Cox's solo project Atlas Sound will open many of the dates, a creative outlet for his intensely introspective music that I witnessed at the Ace Hotel during CMJ and Moogfest in 2011, as well as at Crossing Brooklyn Ferry at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2012.  Looking forward to more music ahead through both trajectories!

A New Music Playlist with a Bit of Country Twang to Honor My Father

A recent favorite photo with my dad, Wallace B. Jansen

I've taken a month-long publishing break as my father's health declined and his final days were spent in a hospice facility, after being under the organization's care since his hospitalization last fall right after my mother died. (At the time, I put together my own funeral songs playlist as I loaded my laptop with her favorite Broadway shows and classical masterpieces.)  I brought a few of his CDs along with me, listening to the country music he loved so much as I sat by his bedside. My dad discovered this genre during his time in the U.S. Army at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, quite a culture shock for the private school boy from suburban Connecticut. How strange it was to listen to George Jones, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard without him chiming in at full volume, emphasizing the twang in the vocals.

There's a joke that if you play a country record backwards you get your wife back, your job back, your truck etc. Of course the fact that we can all relate to loss and heartbreak is part of the appeal. As I returned home with files of paperwork and boxes from my parents' house, I thought about creating a new music playlist with a big of country twang in his honor. Digging in my own archives since 2009, I pulled seventeen songs that had some down home flavor, or at least attitude. Here's the result at the link here or listen below, proving that everybody is just a little bit country when you look hard enough.