The Next Apocalypse: The Art

Someone opined a few days ago that the musical buck stops once you cross the alps and go South. In this guy’s august take on the scene, only classical music remains. But rock, folk and – for sure – metal take a nosedive to nothingness once you start cruising along the Po. And truly so, things change indeed, but not quite this way. From German precision, French bonhomie or the British stiff upper lip and lukewarm beer, you change into a more laid-back realm. But this does not mean non-existence of modern music, bad quality or – Loki forbid – a lack of intensity. Quite the contrary…

Over eighteen boundless albums as experimental as they are pop, Deerhoof has continuously quested for radical sounds and daring storytelling. 2020’s Future Teenage Cave Artists explored fairytale visions of post-apocalypse, welding intrinsic melodies with absurdist digital recording methods. Its sequel Love-Lore, a live covers medley, channeled futurist mid-century artists Parliament, Sun Ra and Stockhausen, to name a handful into a patchwork love letter to the anti-authoritarian expressions that inspire the band.