Deerhoof

Arguably no other band in the extended orbit of indie rock during the last quarter-century has been as inventive, emphatic, and free as Deerhoof. Though first emerging as the solo lark of drummer Greg Saunier, it soon became clear that the band was about the infinite interplay among Saunier’s dauntless drums, Satomi Matsuzaki’s sing-song see-saw act between Japanese and English, and an intricate guitar tandem that eventually fell to John Dieterich and Ed Rodríguez. Deerhoof has been so good for so long that their 2003 LP, Apple O’, received Pitchfork’s first Best New Music imprimatur; in the 22 years since, they have become one of the most flexible but singular bands in music, able to do anything and still sound exactly like themselves.

In those two-plus decades, for instance, Deerhoof covered the score of The Shining, made medleys that connected Voivod to Ornette Coleman and Kraftwerk to Parliament, backed Danielson, and made a record with Wadada Leo Smith. They’ve flirted with doom metal, absolute noise, and modern classical exploration. But they have mostly ridden a perfectly jagged line between splenetic rock and magnetic pop, Matsuzaki’s voice able to find uncanny melodies as she sings about warring robots and radical politics inside the jarring band around her. In 2025, after announcing their splendid Noble and Godlike in Ruin via Craigslist, Deerhoof sparked a movement by removing its music from Spotify—a reminder that, from the start, they’ve done it precisely their way.