I Remember A Cassette Cathedral

Deerhunter “Vox Humana”

1. As far as I can tell, this is Bradford Cox. As in, this is what his soul sounds like. Wistful, fragile, sentimental, and so overflowing with naked yearning for connection or escape or validation that he just has no hope of ever having all his love requited. There’s defeat in his voice, but only just a bit — he mostly just sounds like a person exhausted by his love, and lost in his art and his nostalgia.

2. Whenever people say stuff like “I’m really passionate about music,” it makes me want to slap them in the face because it’s like, what, do you think you’re special for liking music? Almost everyone likes music at least a bit; it’s totally mundane. This is not the case for Bradford Cox. His fandom always comes across like a matter of life and death; as though his obsessions are the only thing that keep him engaged with life. Whereas most people talk about passion as if the word were interchangeable with “hobby” or “interest,” there’s actual passion in Cox — burning, aching desire and longing and need, and emotions so intense they boil your brain from inside your skull.

3. “Vox Humana” is built upon the infamous and ubiquitous “Be My Baby” beat, and of course this a very deliberate thing. We’re meant to think of that song, and all the songs that draw on its love-struck, magical, reverbating thud-thud-thud-tsssh. That shared affection and nostalgia is our entry point to Cox’s personal reverie, and the bit that keeps the composition anchored as the gorgeous, spectral piano part spirals out with his rambling, murmured monologue, rewriting his fading memories as romantic fantasies.

Buy it from Kranky.