New Music: Adult., Dan Deacon

Adult. - I Feel Worse When I'm With You (Thrill Jockey 2007)

Adult. - Why Bother? / Thrill Jockey

So its Easter Sunday and I'm sitting here at the computer stuck in an internet-induced malaise, my stomach devoid of the wonderful down-home cooking my folks are dishing out just down the road. I won't be starving for long, just until I can finish this review for Adult's newest. This temporary hunger strike is supposed to get me into a certain mindframe conducive to fully experiencing Adult., I really wanna get up against their brand of blackened electro-punk and exchange knowing glances. I wanna dance because I have to, because the music demands it, overriding any reservations I have about throwing a fit in a public place.

I've been with Adult. with a minute now, first running across Anxiety Always as a wide-eyed freshman thumbing thru the WUSC music library, that album along with the Vanishing's Still Life's Are Falling soundtracking an especially awesome Halloween where I dressed up like a straightedger and made people really uneasy. Having released their first 12" in 1998, Adult. has been at it for a while, always existing smartly at the moment when punk splintered. Post-punk? Check. Industrial? Yeah. Goth? Kind of. These are a few of my favorite things when done right and Adult. manages to be all at once. But don't knitpick, over-intellectualizing sub-genres is sooo 2004. Adult. is a tight package navigating a black sea of now quite divisive musical cliques, they're capable of being loved equally by fans across the spectrum, from Nine Inch Nails to Prurient, Adult. will elbow, kick, and stomp a hole thru your playlists.

Adult. has always specialized in making black hearts beat. Alot of criticism splits hairs about the group's shifting sound but Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus have been stomping down the same twisted metal highway the entire time. Sam Consiglio or not, things aren't much different. Adult. has a fierce dedication to its craft; whether the record is debated as more electronic or less electronic, the duo has always aimed to make you move with panic attack fervor; the end result is similar whether its four-on-the-floor drum machine beatsss or an emphasis on scuzzy bass guitar thudding.

Why Bother? is yet another nod towards the shadows. Check their myspace for visual queues and clues about the outlook of the album. Its all playful doom and gloom. Sure its dark and moody and all but its really self-aware too. Not to say thats a fault, if they were this purely vitriolic it'd be too good to be true. Motivations aside, Adult. can still kick you square in the crotch. "I Feel Worse (When I'm With You)" is like throwing knives at your S.O. because he left the toilet seat down again and totally missed the target. Thats it, the final straw. Check the cheeky vid for this song on the Youtube front. I'm on this audio/visual tangent because how the song is presented visually can't help but shape criticism, these songs with vids as kind of focal point for us long-winded but short on inspiration blogosphere critics. "The Importance of Being Folk" is a suite of three ambient soundscaping type tracks, short and horizontal, broken up throughout the album, but presented visually to tell a creepy backwoods story with cryptic supernatural happenings. Overall, Why Bother? boasts the band's most acrid electro work to date, whether in grating synth stabs or noisy driving machine beats. Miller's basswork is also stellar, sounding like how a concrete block feels, heavy and something you don't want connecting with your head. And of course, Nicola Kuperus is in fine howling form, crying bloody murder over spilt milk and certainly being the opposite of a cliche. Punks, goths, rivetheads, noise nerds, electro enthusiasts, they all bow down to worship at Kuperus' shitkicking boots.

By now you should know Adult. Take away with you this nugget of wisdom: Adult. is gonna be that band in like ten years (if we're all still here) that people will look back on as being essential. All the microtrends invented by people on message boards will be eaten alive by even more bullshit ephemeral scenes of people pretending that wearing their underwear on their head is the cool thing to do. And it may seem like the thing to do but only for a minute. You'll wake up with your briefs on your head and be a total outcast. Adult. is a band built on strong foundations, embodying many good things like all the bastard children of punk, evolved and fully realized by the duo of Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus. This is one for the time capsule.





Dan Deacon - The Crystal Cat (Carpark 2007)

Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings / Carpark

I can't get enough Dan Deacon. Dan Deacon. Dan Deacon. Dan Deacon. See? Say that over and over again. Its fun! Thats life thru Dan Deacon's duct-taped glasses, little pixie sticks of fun grow everywhere. Pick them and eat them and get at it. You're only as young as you feel and thanx to Mr. Dan Deacon I'm feeling like eight years old right now. Its Friday night, I got new comix and Dad brought home pizza, things in my simple little world are a-okay. This burst of childhood exhuberance comes courtesy of Dan Deacon's new record, Spiderman of the Rings, out on Carpark May 8th. Its all suicide snowcones and monster trucks, a record of electronic whimsy, sugar-rush giddiness straight to the dome. I just snagged this yesterday and I can't stop bouncing off the walls. If only I had one of those toy basketball hoops in my bedroom. I'd be tearing that shit up right now.

Its impossible not to associate Deacon's music with a feel good childhood vibe. Dude has put out a record called Porky Pig. There you go. Deacon also counts Spiderman as a main influence, not only for the cartoony garishness but especially for Spidey's famous maxim: "With great power comes great responsibility". Kinda gets you all sniffly huh? I think Deacon's music is a large laser machette fighting against a mostly dour culture that tells people to grow up too fast. And somehow its caught up in this potential movement or maybe just coincidence of bands being tagged as "future shock", in reference to Alvin Toffler's 1970 cult sociology hit that warned of the ever-increasing grip technology has on our lives and how the constant accelerating speed of life will lead to total information overload, causing "shattering stress and disorientation" in much of society. I'm not sure its a cure, but Deacon's music is a well-intentioned treatment of pure lasertag love, surely meant to make us jump up and down like kids at play, kool-aid moustaches and all.

See also: Ecstatic Sunshine, Ponytail, DAT Politics, o.lamm, and Grabba Grabba Tape for more pure feeling generators, functioning in the same manner as Mr. Deacon with hopped-up geeked-out rainbow brite jams.

Deacon went to grad school at Purchase College where he was all about electro-acoustic and computer music studies, and Spiderman of the Rings is an exercise in academic electro tomfoolery. Academic as in your wacky English TA that wore goofy glasses and awful sweaters, eyes glazed, living in the wonderful postponed adolescence of academia. In other words, this is all about ideals and being, yes, idealistic about the kind of music that can change someone's general outlook, especially in the live-setting where Deacon's performances are legendarily sweaty and spontaneously combustible. Every show wants to become a huge "Funzone", which from what I've heard about Wham City, the live-in residence throwing shows, art bashes, etc. in Baltimore, the Funzone ideal was actually realized, putting theory to practice (as much as anyone can).

The twelve-minute track, "Wham City", is a sonic mission statement with huge gang vocals like a chorus of teddy bears chanting about this magical glowing castle with a fountain of gold and the sickest cartoon family band of all-time, the Gummi Bears, the Smurfs, motherfucking Shirttails, all jamming out. "Woody Woodpecker" also contributes to the Saturday Morning feel, with, you guessed it, a song based on that laugh, underlined by casio beats and blissful sinewaves. "The Crystal Cat" is my favorite track, hop along to the sound of Surf Cats, a powerhouse song featuring Deacon's talent for vocal processing, sounding like the most rock-n-roll chipmunk ever. "Okie Dokie" and "Trippy Green Skull" sound like futuristic hokey pokey throwdowns, you and your friends wylin' out in somebody's impossibly sweet treehouse. "Snake Mistakes" features a bouncey bassline and "I know, I know, I know" vocal stickiness, catching in your ear like moments of Beck's finer work, definitely leaning towards that easy-going Mellowgold vibe.

Do you still have an imagination? For real, Dan Deacon is like a Peter Pan for our generation. Let it all loose, guilt-free from looking like a spazz because here cool is measured in how much you boogie oogie. Its not overstatement to say Spiderman of the Rings is like going to Showbiz once a year, it carries an electric excitement and the need to just let it all go and hop around like a goofy toddler. Its smart, its fun, its a faceplant into your birthday cake. Dan Deacon, totally bringing the birthday party to full effect.