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Baltimore-based composer Dan Deacon surfaced with the intricate collages of
Spiderman of the Rings (Carpark, 2007), that mixed
orchestral arrangements and electronic madness
(Wooody Wooodpecker).
The 12-minute Wham City betrayed both his avantgarde background and
his subcultural passions (minimalist repetition and cartoonish singalong),
somewhere between
Animal Collective and
Girl Talk.
Bromst (Carpark, 2009) was less hilarious and more contemplative,
as if Deacon had suddenly realized that his novelty was worth a lot more
than just a juvenile joke.
Build Voice arrives from very far: a buzz of looped voices slowly
builds up and is surrounded by all sorts of new sounds, including
Brian Eno-esque vocals singing a childish lullabye.
The piece soon become an exercise in chaotic collective minimalist repetition
at a feverish tempo. After a quick ragtime-like piano solo, the coda is
a frenzied horn fanfare worthy of Michael Nyman.
A piercing, drilling drone launches Red F, another Eno-esque singalong
that explores even more rhythmic post-techno soundscapes, grounded in
Neu's "motorik" and a videogame's soundtracks.
The mostly instrumental Paddling Ghost returns to the jovial atmosphere
of the first album, which in turn harked back to the disco novelties of the
late 1970s (this one with a hyper-ska beat and cartoonish voices).
For about three minutes Snookered is a relatively calm song with
sooting arrangements, but then the drum-beat doubles in speed and everything
starts spinning out of control, particularly the crazy, fractured and distored
voice (almost a rockabilly-style hiccup) and the gnome-like voices that spring
up around it.
Marimba and glockenspiel tinge the seven-minute Of The Mountains of
an exotic flavor, and the rhythm (not only the electronic beat but also the
voices that contribute to it) keeps mutating around a mechanical pow-wow beat.
The eight-minute Surprise Stefani uses again the voice as the main rhythmic element, which is then passed on to the drums and finally to the marimba.
The brief Wet Wings is the most psychedelic experiment: just floating
layered voices.
Woof Woof displays one of the most captivating rhythms, a
Disney-like ballet for a multitude of micro-voices that turns into a
psychedelic merry-go-round, like a truly demented version of the Beatles'
Magical Mystery Tour.
Baltihorse is its demonic counterpart, beginning and ending in extreme
frenzied mode with an instrumental intermezzo of eerie dance steps for
(synth-produced) harpsichord and marimba.
And the closing Get Older is the ultimate scream: all instruments turned
to maximum volume and pulsating manically.
The vocal experiments resurrect a glorious tradition that had almost died with
Frank Zappa, and that harks back to the
Fugs' Virgin Forest.
Cartoonish voices intone incoherently majestic melodies that are reprised in
counterpoint by the regular male register (sometimes itself overdubbed).
The common denominator of all the pieces (and what is unique about Deacon)
is the visceral impact and the dense textures. In a sense Deacon is the first
composer who truly continues and fulfils the experiment begun 20 years
earlier by Vampire Rodents.
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