Spiderman Of The Rings
Baltimore based Dan Deacon may be a classically trained composer, an electronic music composer as well as a performer, but I find this set of musical creations just a little tiresome.
Deacon takes contemporary experimental composition and electronic music to the next level of mayhem and absurdity with the tracks here. Vocals are not so important on a more electronic based record, but those that are on here are low and inaudible and when blended together hard to comprehend at times. The use of keyboard, computer and vocoder, to name but a few resources, are used to generate vocals that are not far off from sounding Munchkin like, especially on ‘Trippy Green Skull’ and ‘Snake Mistakes’. At other points through the album the vocals lean towards helium on ‘Okie Dokie’ and a rather evil version of poor old Woody Woodpecker, which co-exits alongside the good old laugh we come to love.
The press release describes this as “the first album bridging the gap between party performer and genuine composer;” if this is well the case then I would be a little afraid. Even with a table top full of pedals, a sine wave generator and lord only knows what else, I find the tracks created mostly hazy, irritating with the beeps and arcade sounds (‘Jimmy Joe Roche’) and very repetitive. At times there is disorientation where one beat is completely out of sync with the other (‘Crystal Cat’) while at other times the tracks are very static and mind numbing.
As well as these annoyingly monotonous effects that drove this listener into a headache, there were some effects that were quite interesting. There is a sense of a funhouse on ‘Woody Woodpecker’, where a spinning sensations is striking and in addition concluded with a fall to the ground, there are subtle milk bottle taps (‘Wham City’), wind chimes (‘Big Milk’) and animal sounds that can only be described as the sort you hear on those made for relaxing CDs. The effects of ‘Pink Batman’ though, had me reminiscing of styles used by Philip Glass.
After 12 tours, an excess of over 300 shows in little over two years and around seven albums, this guy must be doing something someone individuals are attracted to, but not this reviewer.