Just Dance: Dan Deacon, 'Bromst'

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YEARS AGO, your friends might have said, "You gotta see 'em live!" about a jam band if you weren't exactly grooving to their records.

These days, blogs are saying it about Baltimore electro-pop musician Dan Deacon, since his raucous live shows get self-conscious hipsters to dance, but his records have been known to leave some people cold (like the ones who commented on this Gorilla Vs. Bear post).

Over the past few years, Deacon has become one buzzed-about dude, whether performing with his Wham City collective or putting out experimental albums that blend his classical training with his experimental bent. Such was the buzz about his newest CD, "Bromst" (Carpark) that NPR offered listeners an exclusive preview.

Tellingly, the NPR's "Exclusive First Listen" page mentions Deacon has "built his reputation on live shows." And therein lies the problem with "Bromst." This time around, Deacon has emphasized the components that made his music work on the dance floor, but left out the ingredients that made it fascinating for just plain old listening.

Here, Deacon pummels the listener with pounding rhythms, amped-up keyboards and indecipherable vocals — all of which probably whip crowds into frenzies. What's missing is subtlety in production and variety in the compositions.

Deacon's music, like that of Daft Punk or Material (if you go back to the 1980s), delivers the kind of electronic weirdness that can be genuinely exciting. Deacon's music can even be strangely addictive, like on his previous effort, "Spiderman of the Rings," the first album of his that was widely distributed (thanks to a deal with Carpark Records). "Spiderman" sounded like an album Frank Zappa might have made had the mustachioed one been raised on samples instead of Stravinsky.

"Bromst," unfortunately obscures much of what made "Spiderman" so compelling. Gone are the ear-grabbing instrumental-and-sample combinations ("Woody Woodpecker"), the unexpected classical affectations ("Pink Batman") and the unapologetically pretty interludes ("Big Milk").

Instead, "Bromst" offers mostly frantic-sounding compositions that get repetitive after a while. There's lots of compression in these mixes, which makes forceful but, unfortunately, hard to listen to after a few minutes.

In other words, if everything is exciting, then nothing is exciting.

The opener, "Build Voice," for example, is catchy in the way it opens with a voice loop that slowly, um, builds. But the slamming rhythm and massive amount of instrumentation overwhelm the unassuming Depeche Mode-like melody, making the tune the aural equivalent of a garishly decorated cake.

The following, "Red F," is so noisy and monotonous that it eludes interest. The same goes for several other songs, notably "Baltihorse" and the closing "Get Older." Deacon used to flirt with funkiness ("Okie Dokie"), but now his grooves don't, well, groove. The stilted jungle rhythms on "Of the Mountains" are a good example of this.

It also doesn't help that the vocals are buried throughout. Deacon likes to play with vocal textures, but here his layers of pitch-shifted vocals too often detract from the effect of the music, since you have to try and block everything out to hear what he's saying.

Speaking of vocals, "Bromst" does include an interesting a cappella aside in "Wet Wings," where exotic Eastern female voices are layered and woven within one another until they resolve in a massed chorus of "oohs" and "aahs."

The advance press notices for "Bromst" mentioned that on this album, Deacon blends acoustic instruments like piano and vibes with his usual electronic instrumentation. It's ironic, then, that on "Bromst" his music comes off less human and approachable than previously, with its near-impenetrable wall of noise more foreboding than inviting.

The highlights on "Bromst" are more often than not the songs where Deacon and mixer Brett Allen give the arrangements some room to breathe, like on the pulsating "Surprise Stefani." The spacey "Snookered" offers a slow-building arrangement and passel of bell-like noises that make it disorienting in the best sense of the word.

"Woof Woof" may be the record's most perfectly realized song, with its slippery, pitch-bending hook and chanted, chipmunk vocal break. Better still, by slowing the beats per minute and scaling back the instrumental riffs, Deacon is able to deliver some syncopation that eludes many of the other numbers.

All that said, "Bromst" will probably be the album that works best for Deacon when he's working a crowd. It's loud even at the lowest volumes, and a lot of the buzzy, in-your-face synth tones seemed designed to elicit a physical reaction. But don't expect to convert non-believers to Deacon this time around without using the phrase "You gotta see him live!"

» 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW; with Future Islands and Teeth Mountain, Sun., May 17, 7 p.m., $12; 800-955-5566. (U St.-Cardozo)

Written by Express contributor Tony Sclafani

Photo by Josh Sisk