Rock/Pop/Indie - As much as just about any other album of 2008, we have listened to and loved Deerhunter's Microcastle. Excepting the wordless opener, every song has been firmly stuck in our collective head(s) at one time or another, sometimes for days at a time, and listening to the LP end to end is a transcendent pleasure.

The quality of the music is surpassed only by the band's incredible restraint in its execution. Despite numerous opportunities to go over the top - and many lesser bands surely would - Bradford Cox and co. simply go to the top and stay there for 12 hypnotic tracks, a mountain of rock-solid pop songs shrouded in billowing clouds of reverb. As a twin achievement in song and sound it stands alongside the best work of Brian Eno and My Bloody Valentine, both unsurprisingly cited as Cox as major influences on his band's "ambient punk."

Deerhunter's new EP Rainwater Cassette Exchange never retreats into full-on ambience as the group's LPs have, but its five tracksrange from the driving shoegaze of "Disappearing Ink" to dubby delay drenched loungers like the title track and "Game of Diamonds," whose hypnotic lope resembles Cox's solo work under the guise Atlas Sound. As a songwriter and musician, Cox is prodigious in both quantity and and quality: in addition to Microcastle and its companion full-length Weird Era Cont. he also released an acclaimed Atlas Sound album last year, and as if that wasn't enough, he has become increasingly generous in sharing otherwise unavailable songs by both acts on his blog. That he's literally giving away such good tunes speaks volumes to the caliber of the music we're actually expected to pay for, and Rainwater Cassette Exchange is worth every penny.

Artist Site MySpace Kranky

Rock - More than any other album of 2008, I (and here I drop the editorial "we" so as not to burden anyone else with my superlatives) have listened to and loved Deerhunter's Microcastle. Excepting the wordless opener, every song has been firmly stuck in my head at one time or another, sometimes for days at a time, and listening to the LP end to end is a transcendent pleasure I enjoy at least weekly.

The quality of the music is surpassed only by the band's incredible restraint in its execution. Despite numerous opportunities to go over the top - and many lesser bands surely would - Bradford Cox and co. simply go to the top and stay there for 12 hypnotic tracks, a mountain of rock-solid pop songs shrouded in billowing clouds of reverb. As a twin achievement in song and sound it stands alongside the best work of Brian Eno and My Bloody Valentine, both unsurprisingly cited as Cox as major influences on his band's "ambient punk."

Deerhunter's new EP Rainwater Cassette Exchangenever retreats into full-on ambience as the group's LPs have, but its five tracksrange from the driving shoegaze of "Disappearing Ink" to dubby delay drenched loungers like the title track and "Game of Diamonds," whose hypnotic lope resembles Cox's solo work under the guise Atlas Sound. As a songwriter and musician, Cox is prodigious in both quantity and and quality: in addition to Microcastle and its companion full-length Weird Era Cont. he also released an acclaimed Atlas Sound album last year, and as if that wasn't enough, he has become increasingly generous in sharing otherwise unavailable songs by both acts on his blog. That he's literally giving away such good tunes speaks volumes to the caliber of the music we're actually expected to pay for, and Rainwater Cassette Exchange is worth every penny.

Artist Site MySpace Kranky

Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange (From Rainwater Cassette Exchange)