Given to rhythmic epilepsy, vocal mischief, and lyrical flights of fancy, Deerhoof is an experimental indie-rock band with delusions of accessibility. Or is it the other way around? Drummer Greg Saunier isn’t sure, but he appwreciates the debate.

“If accessibility means someone can like it, then I would say that’s not so much what we’re concerned with,” says Saunier, reached at a New York tour stop. “If it means someone can understand it or get something out of it, then maybe that’s more interesting. But even there, it’s fun when different people get different things out of it. We get wa kick out of the way one person might say, ”˜I’m surprised your music is accessible,’ or one person saying, ”˜Your music is so crazy,’ and they’re both talking about the same music.”

On Friend Opportunity , the Bay Area trio’s eighth full-length since 1997, Deerhoof maintains its restlessly creative, complex energy. Songs veer madly off in all directions, though usually they return to one of John Dieterich’s wonky guitar riffs, Satomi Matsuzaki’s Dadaist vocal lines, or Saunier’s funked-up beats. Pilfering styles and motifs, the band applies a blaring synth part that sounds like it belongs in a sports arena to the otherwise gentle “Kidz Are So Small” and takes mariachi horns to places Calexico would never dream of in first single “+81”. Even when the band does something as relatively normal as “Matchbook Seeks Maniac”, Deerhoof sticks the sweet pop tune toward the end of the disc, before the 11-minute, meandering oddity “Look Away”.

Deerhoof, which was a quartet on its breakthrough 2005 album, The Runners Four , approached the recording of Friend Opportunity the way it usually does—brainstorming ideas, then throwing them out. “The songs seem to have a mind of their own or a will of their own,” says Saunier. “No matter what we might calculate, we can’t really force them to be something other than what they are. Usually they’re telling us what they want to sound like. They really have this random quality.”

It was business as usual once the record was finished, with Saunier making panicked calls to the group’s label, Kill Rock Stars, to stop the presses. The Runners Four was “finished” four times, according to the drummer, and Friend Opportunity was nearly as problematic to complete. The perfectionism pays off, however, in albums that are as rewarding as they can be challenging.

“At this point the people at Kill Rock Stars have sort of figured it out,” Saunier explains. “Put it this way: we’ve never had any producer, we’ve never had any guiding hand, and we really have no idea what we’re doing when we’re making music. And Kill Rock Stars isn’t any help either, because they must be the most hands-off label in the history of recorded music. No matter what you do, you cannot get any comment out of them, as far as, like, ”˜Oh, I think you need to do this kind of album,’ or, ”˜I think this one’s good, but maybe this one you should cut or this one should be remixed.’ They’ve never said anything like that. No matter what we’ve sent them over the years, they’re like, ”˜Sounds good!’

Deerhoof plays Richard’s on Richards on Friday (February 2).