Myths 004

Cate Le Bons role as producer on Deerhunters 2019 album Why Hasnt Everything Already Disappeared? can be heard in both the albums experimental tendencies and organic but distant arrangements. Le Bons own 2019 strike, Reward, had the same balance of strong songwriting and production that blurred curiosity and confusion. The creative friendship between Le Bon and Deerhunters Bradford Cox takes new shapes on their collaborative EP Myths 004. At its most straightforward, the seven-song project sounds like what could be outtakes from either artists 2019 album. Opening track Canto! features Cox in a dramatic double-tracked vocal melody in an arrangement decorated with strums of autoharp, dissonant guitar soloing, and heavy tandem drum kits. Secretary has Le Bon on lead vocals but follows a more otherworldly instrumental style, with bell-like melodic percussion, warped piano, and muted horns giving the song the same alien pallor of Reward. Cox comes in with a spoken word voice-over near the end of the tune, hemming together all of its abstract elements with a few calmly delivered words. ~ Fred Thomas