America
Dan Deacon\'s electronic music works many different angles, far beyond what many similar artists consider their realm. The Baltimore chopper slices and dices his influences with irreverence, and *America*—his first album for the estimable independent label Domino—isn\'t afraid of getting tangled up in difficult emotions. \"Guilford Avenue Bridge\" sets the tone; it\'s an ambient instrumental that neither settles as wallpaper nor kicks up to raging ecstasy. Indie pop underpins the high-energy romp \"True Thrush,\" while \"Lots\" and \"Crash Jam\" come closest to the pure mania most listeners associate with 21st-century electro-pop. With \"Prettyboy,\" sounds start to boil over with a sense that something big and rather ominous is coming. And it arrives. The four-part \"USA\" series features a mix of programmed and live instruments that create an orchestral suite beyond anyone\'s expectations. \"USA II: The Great American Desert\" is a rumbling and tumbling epic with beats that flutter to and fro. Dan Deacon proves that electronic music can still be affected by a human touch.
America is both Dan Deacon's most expansive album and his most inward-looking. The first half's an attempt to extend his range as a songwriter beyond human freak-out. The second half's four linked pieces add up to his most intricate, involving piece to date.
Dan Deacon’s breakout 2007 record referenced comic superheroes and The Lord Of The Rings, made an entire song of Woody Woodpecker’s laugh, and contained such schoolyard boasts as “My dad is so cool … he would pick you up if I asked him to.” The 2009 follow-up Bromst was less whimsical, but the bold America is a…
Dan Deacon’s debut for the Domino label is an album of two halves: his classic sound for the first, then an ambitious orchestral journey for the second.
Though he's made a name for himself based on his irreverent and impossibly enthusiastic electro-pop, Dan Deacon shows off the more thoughtful side of his hectic composition style on the thoughtfully orchestrated America.
America by name, America by nature. Dan Deacon's follow-up to his 2009 career high Bromst is swathed in the big, bold and sometimes graceless chutzpah of the country it was created in. But these brainbox battering beats are as much an examination of the Baltimore-based composer’s sonic progression as a delve into what motivates the United States of America's inner-psyche.
Fans of Dan Deacon's minimalism-gone-maximum electronic music were possibly puzzled when he stated that his latest opus would be his "protest album."
The eccentric Baltimore producer continues to create hyperactive, space-age electronica with his third album to get a full UK release.
<p>The American composer's paean to his homeland is a feelgood triumph, says <strong>Kitty Empire</strong></p>
Minimalist electronics, beats and an orchestral sensibilty collide to ask what it means to be American. CD review by Kieron Tyler