Deerhoof

And now for something completely different: Deerhoof, a band that sounds either machine-made or as if manufactured using really crappy equipment. Except that the musicianship is impeccable and, in this case, the only conclusion a listener can arrive at is that the members of Deerhoof struggle to make their music sound so genuinely troubling. A reviewer at Pitchfork called them the best band in the world, but I’d ask a reader not to hold that against them. There is not one downbeat of pretension in Deerhoof. They are the kids next door, but the rock and roll music they make has strange hinges and flaps and works on a listener’s central nervous system in the same way that the blues might go to work on another listener’s pelvis.

The P-fork reviewer and I do agree on one thing, however: Deerhoof keeps every moment exciting. This is not the kind of band that worries about how one chord will resolve into the next. They claim to have no idea what they are doing when they are making music, but that sort of thing sounds almost too cute, like a marketing slogan. In their unpredictability, I trust that Deerhoof is every bit as rehearsed as Ted Nugent. It just comes out different. There have been a dozen albums released since the noise-pop band started in 1994 up north in a part of California that may come as no surprise to some: San Francisco. The current members are Satomi Matsuzaki, Ed Rodriguez, John Dieterich, and Greg Saunier. What makes the experience of art noise redeemable? An audience. That, and a sense of humor. Deerhoof music breaks all compositional rules in a comic way that makes the band members seem much too old to be doing this sort of thing with their lives.

LXMP and Kids also perform.

Deerhoof: The Irenic, Sunday, November 3, 619-255-7224, 7 p.m. $13 in advance/$15 at the door