Buzzin Electronic Music

Dan Deacon – Bromst – album review

Dan Deacon in 2008

Dan Deacon’s second commercial album since Spiderman of the Rings in 2007 sounds like a riposte to all those claiming that Animal Collective are the artists pushing the barriers of popular music the furthest right now.

The collage of sounds, the frantic rhythms, the warped vocals – all of this sounds familiar to anyone acquainted with Animal Collective, and Dan Deacon certainly is coming from a similar perspective, (albeit his being from a trained musician’s background).

Although there are clearly differences, I dare say that Dan Deacon’s newest offering Bromst isn’t actually even more progressive, inspired, engaging and glorious than Merriweather Post Pavillion.

The comparison to Animal Collective sprang to mind mainly because they seem to have converged on the balance between live and computed music. Dan Deacon uses many more live instruments on Bromst than previously– marimba, xylophone, glockenspiel, vibraphone, drums and piano appear over interestingly distorted vocals and tasteful synthesisers.

This cacophony of sounds may seem overwhelming, and the potential for Bromst to spiral out of control is apparent from the very off. The tension built by ‘Build Voice’ explodes into the furiously paced and richly layerd ‘Red F’, which acknowledges, like a lot Bromst, the ‘chiptune’ musicians influenced by 90s computer games.

The backgrounding of the vocals is brilliant throughout. Dan Deacon never allows them to take over, and leaves them intriguingly obscured by fuzzy production. When they are prevalent – in a waily, Arcade Fire sort of way – it is through perfectly managed changes of tone and chord – such as on ‘Paddling Ghost’.

About the record, Deacon says:

“Much of Bromst is a story about becoming a ghost, cycles of the earth, mountains, getting older, change, nonlinear time, bees, global conspiracy/oppression of the spirit, 2012, and a psychedelic realm that coexists with out material plan.”

Bromst, as Deacon’s testimony proves, is eclectic, passionate, playful and most of all, original. Every listen finds something new in each richly layered and intricately structured track. Highlights are relentless, and cannot be limited to individual tracks, but rather to sections of tracks that fly out of nowhere, land perfectly and strike a resonant chord in the subconscious.

Listen to the whole thing (out now), but Dan Deacon’s MySpace page will give you an inital taste of the man’s eclectic genius.