Pitchfork

Anyone can stab you in the back, I guess, but Grizzly Bear know it hurts most from a lover-- or a Friend. The Brooklyn psych-folk group's "Knife" was a piercing highlight from our #8 album of 2006, vast with woozy Flamingos-esque harmonies, alternately chugging and twinkling guitars, and distant percussion rumbling. The song has already been remixed by Girl Talk, covered by Beirut, and covered by Born Ruffians, among other alternate versions. Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox tries his hand at "Knife" on Grizzly Bear's upcoming Friend EP, and the results are in line with the ethereal ambience of Cox's other recent work under his Atlas Sound solo alias.

Deerhunter's Best New Music'd album Cryptograms felt like it was putting itself under the knife, brutalizing fragile psych-pop songs with sludgy freak-outs and forbidding interludes that all seem somehow necessary. So Cox knows what he's doing as he layers looped vocals, ringing effects, ramshackle guitars, and watery percussion for an eerie, disjointed rendition of Grizzly Bear's Yellow House original. After going doo-wop for his cover of Mark Sultan's "Unicorn Rainbow Odyssey", Cox downplays such oohing sweetness on "Knife", instead taking noisy delight in the song's deceitful fantasy. From a madhouse of echoey overdubs: "Can't you feel the knife?" Yup! No wait, just heartburn. 

[from the Friends EP; due 11/06/07 from Warp]