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Dan Deacon
Bromst
Review By Jesse Jarnow
If Baltimore art-nerd Dan Deacon has sometimes come off like a one-man Devo — an accelerated, self-aware party blasted into a small neon box — on Bromst, he explodes outwards into an orchestra. In one section is the chipmunk chorale, sometimes buried far in the mix ("Padding Ghost"), sometimes singing lead ("Baltihorse"). Marimbas and other tuned percussion skitter in another corner, providing bed color for pounding beats and garish synth washes. Tying it all together — and the reason why Deacon has recently earned a joyous rave-punk following — are huge, ascending melodies.
"Build Voice," the disc's first track, is a literal statement of Deacon's methods: a slow build from total silence to full volume over three minutes, walls of snare drums topped with a looping psychedelic melody. "Padding Ghost," meanwhile, telescopes the joys of eight-bit noise into some exponential rainbow of pixellating sonics. Some of the tricks are repurposed whole from 2007's Spiderman of the Rings. On "Snookered," he re-uses the clever ascending melody of "Crystal Cat," but recycles it well, setting it between bursts of a clone choir and more fields of drummers. There are too many abstract interludes for Bromst to qualify as a dance party, but it's pretty close, and pretty awesome.
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