Popping up all over 2006 music news like a breath of fresh air, Deerhoof headlined the best-attended New York free concert of the summer, and becomes Danielson's backing band on the much celebrated ‘Ships'. Saunier's
production work appears on Xiu Xiu's acclaimed album ‘The Air Force', and meanwhile they are handpicked for two of 2006's most coveted summer tours, with The Flaming Lips and Radiohead.
‘Friend Opportunity' is a feat of reinvention that could only come from artists willing to rethink everything. Even though Deerhoof have been around a long time, they're still restless, still hungry for the rush of the new. Not coincidentally, and fortunately for Deerhoof, they've attracted a burgeoning following who absolutely love to be challenged - from album to album, from song to song, from moment to moment. ‘Friend Opportunity' will not
disappoint them. Or anyone else.
Songs like ‘The Perfect Me' have three or four sections of heart-stopping epiphanies of the sublime; ‘Matchbook Seeks Maniac' pulls a ‘99 Luftballoons' breakdown move in the middle, rocks a Brahms interval in the pop-narcotic chorus, and the Beach Boys and the Who are all over the mix. ‘Believe E.S.P.' opens with Deerhoof's take on get-down funky slinkopation but the next passage sounds like something out of Palestrina, and so many of these songs are like a scenic drive that flows seamlessly from one astonishing vista to the next, from wide, shimmering deserts to foggy canyons to staggering, snow-peaked mountaintops.