Deerhoof’s The Magic sounds like a wild sonic adventure, one where musical boundaries are cheerfully ignored. By stripping away the comforts of a polished studio and choosing an abandoned office in the New Mexico desert, Deerhoof dove into the raw unknown. Over a week, they distilled the untamed spontaneity of the setting into an album that bursts with genre-melding playfulness and punchy riffs.
It’s easy to picture The Magic as a mixtape that bridges decades and sounds—infused with punk, glam, doo-wop, and a healthy dose of eccentricity. There’s a punk ethos in the way they embrace everything they loved as kids, tapping into music’s pure enchantment before the industry’s rules set in. This connection to childhood curiosity and rebellion is palpable in both the album’s attitude and its texture, like a drive through wild sonic landscapes with surprising turns at every track.
With The Magic, Deerhoof embodies a paradox: a disciplined chaos where creativity and technical skill meet unrestrained curiosity. Matsuzaki’s story of being lost on a dark corner in San Francisco echoes the whole journey—starting with uncertainty and veering into something extraordinary and unplanned. Deerhoof is a band that, rather than resting on laurels, digs into a new well of creativity and has once again embraced risk, adventure, and sheer musical joy.