And forever the deer shall run

As a boy, I would often join my parents on excursions to the Oregon Coast. Since the only way to get there was over a mountain, we would sometimes see wildlife ducking into the pines from the window of our van. Once my mother thought she saw an injured deer in a distant field. Dad pulled over, we got out and walked to the edge of the field. There the deer lie on its back, its right leg mangled, a compound fracture exposing the anklebone somehow leaving the hoof just hanging there. Dad said on account of there being no flies the deer hadn’t been dead long. For years the cruel sight of the dangling hoof haunted me, but in 2004, my memory changed, the hoof healed better than before and the deer's splendid stride was fully restored thanks to the thousand beautiful tones and bionic hip-shattering rhythms emanating from Deerhoof’s The Runner Four, a CD capturing a band prophylactically penetrated by jazz and perverted by pop with a sweetly poised, profoundly absurd Japanese girl getting her quips stalked and mimicked by guitars spicier than Wasabi, Runners Four was like a Kinks’ allergy administered with an explosive dose of NOW heaven. A true force of nature, it remains the most mind-blowing guitar album I have heard this century.