Having fun is sometimes easier said than done. By the sounds of Dan Deacon’s “Gliss Riffer,” it can even be hard work.
Before the music world got to know the Baltimore-based producer, was known best as a wise-cracking 3D lizard. Deacon’s free-association track “Drinking Out Of Cups” was set to animation and became soon after. A year later, he’d release his music breakthrough, “Spiderman Of The Rings,” a funhouse of psychedelic electro-pop with the tempo of a surging sugar-rush.
Since then, Deacon’s ambition and time signatures haven’t lost a step. 2009’s “Bromst” featured compositions so breakneck that only a Disklavier, a midi-fed player-piano, could pull them off; his last release, titled simply “America,” featured a musical treatise on the USA in four parts. Still, Deacon appeared to have mellowed out some. Software synths were traded for orchestras, a home studio gave way to a custom-built anechoic chamber and what was once an ecstatic sound project had become calculated, nuanced and, at times, dead serious.
Nearly a decade after emerging from wacky obscurity, “Gliss Riffer” finds Deacon wandering back through the Day-Glo spattered halls of his yesteryear. But fun isn’t a natural byproduct here as much as it’s a concerted effort.”When I Was Done Dying,” for example, has Deacon prattling a stream-of-conscious narrative that has the spirit of that 3D lizard so many high schoolers fell in love with, but little actual amusement. In album-opener “Feel The Lightning” — a goofy reference to — tries to set a slapstick tone, but like so much of the album, is a bit too on-the-nose .
“Gliss Riffer” works best as a retool of “Spiderman of the Rings” with a few new, though mostly aesthetic, parts under the hood. The ebullient rhythm crescendos that “Spiderman” so novelly introduced are back, along with the Disklavier introduced on “Bromst” (“Take It To The Max”). But the curio instrument is typically buried under so many dense layers of samples that using it rather than an arpeggiated synth is more for Deacon’s enjoyment than ours. The same could be said of his voice, a clumsy thing that tends to ground the album’s whimsical flights of fancy as abruptly as a power failure at one of his .
When scrambling for excuses, it’s tempting to think of “Gliss Riffer” merely as set pieces for the stage. Deacon has always flourished live, and the album buzzes with the manic energy that made him a must-see and must-hear. But as the record spins, it’s as unconvincing as an MC with low self-esteem—uncharacteristic for Deacon to say the least. It ends with “Deacon Blues,” a gradual dump of apparent discord that melds together beautifully. In Deacon’s world, it could register as “atmospheric,” and might hint at his natural inclination right now. There’s relief here — not only from the chaos that precedes, but in the fact that Deacon might still have something to keep us interested between tours.
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Dylan Owens writes album reviews, essays and features for Reverb. You can read more from him on his website, or the comment sections of WORLDSTARHIPHOP.
