Deerhoof - Lose Your Breath (My Bloody Valentine cover)

So Deerhoof... they're pretty cool. Only one of the best bands making music today! They keep putting out great album after great album at such a rate that you'd think they'd eventually run out of gas or have a period of creative exhaustion, but it never happens. For a band that's been around for 13 years and continues to expand on their sound, that's damn impressive.

Last year Deerhoof came out with a free online EP that featured a few covers (MBV, Beatles, Canned Heat, Herman's Hermits) as well as live versions of songs from their then newest album The Runners Four. While nice, it was rather annoyingly released as a long 20 something megabyte song rather than being split into individual mp3s. I'll upload the full 9 track EP that I've split up myself at the end of this entry. The EP was released as a tribute to the former member and guitarist Chris Cohen when he decided to leave the band to form The Curtains. That has to be one of the most pleasant member departure stories I've ever heard.

My favorite cover from the EP was one of My Bloody Valentine's "Lose Your Breath." MBV is a band that takes balls to cover and real talent to cover well. Thankfully Deerhoof have both. Their version while keeping the general structure of the song intact takes it from its inital peaceful shoegaze form and beef it up with a distortion foreign to the original as well as Greg Saunier's aggressive drumming which works suprisingly well with the dreamy cooing chorus. "Oo oo oo oooooooooo oo oo ooooo". Something like that. MBV's version is from their 1988 record Isn't Anything, or the album they had before Loveless that didn't suck (cough This Is Your Bloody Valentine.)

Deerhoof - Lose Your Breath

My Bloody Valentine - Lose Your Breath
"Weigh me down
And when the darkness comes around
Repeating heads
Remember nothing I have said
Where are you
Come back again I want you to
'Not now girl' you say
But I was born to lose my breath"

Deerhoof - Untitled EP
1. The Continuing Sage of Bungalo Bill (Beatles)
2. Desaparence [Live]
3. Wrong Time Capsule [Live]
4. Goin' Up the Country (Canned Heat)
5. Spirit Ditties of No Tone [Live]
6. Lose My Breath [My Bloody Valentine]
7. Dinner for Two [Live]
8. Lightning Rod, Run [Live]
9. There's a Kind of Hush (Herman's Hermits)

Pfork's Review

Deerhoof @ Kill Rock Stars (also features 8 free mp3s)
My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything @ Amazon.com