#1593 Dan Deacon - Gliss Riffer

Deacon's finally done it - he's made that gorgeous, alien, comforting, thrilling post-pop album that always seemed just within arm's reach


Spiderman of the Rings was the breakthrough, half-taming his spastic noisepop instincts into something affecting and bonkers and damned enjoyable in its own batshit way. But that brush with approachability sent him wheeling off in the other direction, into the hyperdense weeds of Bromst and America - brilliant, but more like post-music dissertations than dancefloor manifestos. America was an electronic-prog turning point: had we lost Dan Deacon to a spiral of chinscratching, showoffy process music forever? Was a Metal Machine Music bottomout next?


Just as we despaired, that hand reached out from the pit and grabbed the ledge. Dan's back from the depths and he's dragged everything he's learned back to the surface and he's thrown us a feast of strange fruits and meats and he's telling us the stories of his death and what came after.

This sound like Dan finally ready to make something that people like, and to be ok with that. Each of the first 6 songs has something to grab onto, a cooing ladyvocal, an invitation to "get a little bit closer", a downright approachable hook or three. And it all *flows*, something even the best Dan Deacon album's never done - it's remarkably easy to put this thing on and let it carry you song to song.

Maybe Dan had a lifechanging experience. There's that thread of mortality and beauty and the moment that won't let up, approached with that wide-eyed wonder of Starfucker's Reptillians or The Unicorns' opus, with a sense of community and grabbing hold of everything and everyone around you, or tripping through time and space.

All the signatures are there: the endless titular glissandos, piano overloads, the buzzy buzzes, the snickersnapped vocals, but Deacon's seemingly taken cues from the likes of Laurie Andersen, Steve Reich, and Scott Herren, bringing uncommon warmth from the flintiest of alien ores.

Much of this goes out the window during the last 2 tracks that indulge in more of his usual excesses - they're enjoyable in the usual way, but lose some of this latest album's magic. If you pretend it ends at track 6 you've got the most perfect 28 minute album you're going to hear in a long, long time 4.5/5