The song used as an example of this “anti-music” is Panda, which is all about the jarring rhythm, but then releases into a melodic “break down” almost. Building and releasing tension is one of Deerhoof’s greatest strengths, in my opinion, especially when they play live. So I suppose if you don’t enjoy tension in your music, you would have more trouble enjoying Deerhoof, but it has nothing to do with Anti-music, or lack of melody and rhythm.

Bands can maybe get some minor acclaim because people feel pressured to like them or be deemed un-cool, but it’s impossible to build the fan base and respect that Deerhoof has achieved without legitimately resonating with folks

And I won’t even get into your mis-application of “reductionism” or your general mis-understanding of post-modern theory.

in my opinion you couldn’t be further of the mark. To me Deerhoof plays some of the freshest melodies and rhythms this side of the millenium.

You might be confusing beauty with ‘melodies I can understand or at least refer a bit to a structure we know from the past’. Deerhoof’s goal (to me) seems a bit to make something new and beautiful out of tiny particles of the past. But to achieve this bliss, casualties have to be made and in this case more formal melodies have to be killed in order to achieve this level of “five year old’s crappy crayon drawing” as you call it (which by the way is the level for instance a acceptably talented painter as Picasso aimed to achieve, at only reached after his 40-ies). What’s wrong with the creativity of a 5-year old by the way ? And do you think a 5-year old could play like Greg Saunier ?

And as for dishevelled kids : I’m mid-thirties and live in Belgium, how’s that for indie hipness ?

You just don’t like Deerhoof but maybe you’re expecting something from them they don’t want to give, although I’m pretty sure they could play (write?) a mean Satisfaction if they really, really wanted to. They just don’t want or need to I guess !

I’m sorry if this felt like a rant but I’m a bit taken aback by the fact that one of the few bands that give me a total musical energy boost these days, get slashed for the very thing that makes them great…

deerhoof are a disturbing lot, not because they are particularly “radical,” (they are not) or what not, but because they could not be more anti-music if they tried. they despise melody, rhythm, and although saunier can boast of being a classically trained musician, one is left to wonder if he left music school because he couldn’t hack it, or if was because his hatred of music became internalized.

deerhoof continues down the post modern spiral of nihilism, and belches up tunes that are a mockery of melody. in a sense, they are the perfect sound track for the age. the era where what is good is discarded, and beauty is mocked and trampled under foot. instead of dreams, or impressions, we live in an artistic era of hyper-realism, that is neither a reflection of the truth, nor a critique of it.
in deer hoof we have un-distilled reductionism, where music reduced to its basest components, and all but the skeleton remains. the time signatures are jarring and psychotic, and the melodies are non-existent. in truth, the singer can’t sing, and of course saunier held this up to be a virtue. a singer who can’t sing and no songs are there to be sung anyway.
of course deerhool is a “cool” band. they have a loyal following of artistically stunted and disheveled masses, who hear bland tunes such as “panda, panda” as a backdrop to their ever bland and artless lives. deer hoof is obscurantist in the extreme, and when one really delves beneath the surface one discovers that the emperor is indeed wearing no clothes. this is just another indier-than-thou band that creates sonic nightmares that are the musical equivalent of a five year old’s crayon drawing. and like the five year old’s crappy crayon drawing, you are obliged to leave it hanging on the fridge door til time immemorial. with deerhoof one must not admit that this band sucks terribly, lest one be cast out of the cult of the “cool,” where originality is daily massacred, and the group-think is alive and well.