Deerhoof‘s surprise new (free!) album Love-Lore on Joyful Noise Recordings that dropped today (Sept. 28) is surprising in a second way as well.
It’s a 35-minute, 43-song, live-in-the-studio covers medley of songs by mostly ’80s hitmakers, including Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, The Police, Sun Ra and the B-52’s. Tracks from composers Ennio Morricone, John Cage and Laurie Anderson are also part of Love-Lore.
Love-Lore is available as a free download at Bandcamp, the band’s website, and Joyful Noise Recordings, and a limited edition commemorative poster is available as well.
The band held a listening party starting 3 p.m. Eastern announcing Love-Lore, and answered questions afterward.
There’s also a written component to the offering:. Muindi Fanuel Muindi wrote an essay to accompany the release, and a portion of those explain the band’s raison d’etre: “Deerhoof is not the future of music and doesn’t want to be — they simply want to embrace you, here and now, in the present.”
The essay went on to explain that Deerhoof’s Love-Lore is “a funeral for futures obliterated by projections from a toxic past.”
The trail-blazing four-piece has been busy during the pandemic; Love-Lore is the group’s second album in 2020. The first was Future Teenage Cave Artists.
Additionally, the band’s Greg Saunier gave proggy metal band VoiVoid’s Angel Rat album an acoustic makeover in March of this year.
