Dan Deacon – America (Domino)
Equally adept at composing Steve Reich-channelling contemporary classical music as multicoloured, spastic 8-bit symphonies to God, Baltimore’s Dan Deacon certainly has to be one of the most fun musicians to ever play Carnegie Hall. In the face of socio-economic turmoil in the US, he set out to make an album contemplating the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave as it stands today. America, in all its chaotic beauty and furore, represents not only the most seamless fusion of his classical and electronic work, but also a redemptive and pretty magnificent tribute to the flawed grandeur of the American landscape and to the power of people united in their quest for a more perfect union.
By Carly Blair