DAN DEACON - "AMERICA"
Dan Deacon is a guy from Baltimore, Maryland that makes a very unique brand of electronic music. He’s been releasing albums for almost a decade now, with “America” being his eighth album to date. Most of you probably know him for his video “Drinking Out Of Cups” where an animated lizard with a heavy Boston or Brooklyn or some East Coastian accent is speaking about nonsense. The video became a hit like five years after it was released, but hey, better late then never. What most people don’t know is that Dan Deacon is a fucking incredible composer. The guy is no talentless mainstream DJ that thinks he’s some incredible artists because he bought a Macbook and some Beats headphones, when in reality all his songs follow the same unoriginal musical progression and use overly played, regurgitated sounds. No, Dan Deacon is like the fucking Beethoven of electronic music, he went to school to study music, and possesses a real skill when it comes to crafting it, all of which shows on “America”.
As is true of all brilliant musicians, Dan Deacon’s music has changed and developed over the years, while still remaining distinctly Dan Deacon-esque. I guess what I mean by that is, you never want an artist to remain stagnant, even if you’re in love with an artist’s sound, its never a good sign if they release an album that sounds exactly like their last one, it shows a lack of growth and creativity, or the presence of an overbearing record label. You want an artist’s sound to grow and develop, as the artist grows and develops. The music changes, while still retaining the core qualities you loved about the music. So I guess good music is kind of like good people, and bad music is kind of like robots (notice I didn’t say androids, for all my fellow sci-fi fans out there). When Dan Deacon began his career he made shorter, more crazy, humorous and eclectic music, however it was still brilliantly composed. The fact that he was able to include so many varying sounds and make it sound like a cohesive piece of work was a true testament to his skills. As he’s grown however, so has his music. The song lengths have increased, and contain less crazy and eclectic sounding noises and samples, while still gracing the listeners ears with a unique mixture of sounds, that really show just how talented he is as a composer. Ever since “Spiderman of the Rings” came out in 2007 and “Bromst” in 2009, the music has gotten so much more complex, with layers on top of layers, convincing the listener that they are truly in the presence of greatness when they press play.
“America” is a very diverse album, but I guess America the country is pretty diverse too, yet the album still manages to sound like a cohesive project, and hey I guess despite our differences we all seem to get along in America! Deacon you dog, you! But really, I have no idea if that’s what his goal was in naming his album “America”, its probably much more complex and deep, I mean the guy went to art school, that’s like +20 pretentious points, and I’m only a liberal arts major, leaving me at a lowly +12. Anyway the albums great, its truly a journey through fast paced, jittery, yet still strangely danceable noises, to unintelligible sing along munchkin-esque choruses and slow, gentle, flowing, ethereal sounds of electronic beauty. I don’t know how the guy comes up with this stuff, how he creates the gear, to create the sounds, to create the songs, is beyond me, but I’m sure glad he can do it. It’s like he’s the maestro and the electronic circuits are his orchestra, that play out his complex, eclectic, and beautiful symphony (I mean after all the album ends with four songs titled USA I, USA II, USA III, and USA IV, coincidence? I think not). Anyway, you should check out the album, especially if you only know Dan Deacon as the guy that created the “Drinking Out Of Cups” video, or if you just want to hear some brilliantly crafted music unlike anything else out there. Below are some of my favourites from the album, but I could have easily included the whole album. In fact, the whole album should be listened to in order, as a complete work as it was intended, cause one song will lead into another, so do yourself a favour and just go download it now.
“Guilford Avenue Bridge”
“True Thrush”
“Prettyboy”
“Crash Jam”
“USA: II. The Great American Desert”
