CityLife

Master of the arpeggiator Dan Deacon to give electro masterclass

PARTY TIME!: Deacon

DAN Deacon is a modern eccentric: a classically trained musician-composer with a singular and manic vision, one that breathes optimistic life into the idea of modern community. 

Although starting out mostly playing synthesisers, he is categorically not the guy in a band who plays keyboards while hardly moving, all the better to retain his composure and superiority, to both fellow band members and everyone and no-one in particular.

Sweat and happiness follow Dan Deacon shows. You can’t guarantee both, but at least one will definitely flow in large quantity. 

Immediately unmistakable, his music is circles of the loudest electronic patterns + sped up mantra-like group chanting + more of the former + more of the latter - until the surging wall of programmed beats, brightly coloured arpeggios, and community vocals can’t seem to grow in any possible direction.

That’s when he throws in a breakdown, you think you might explode, and it begins all over again except bigger. 

In fact that description covers ‘Wham City’-era Deacon, but this year, with the release of Bromst, his second album, the palette of colours and timbres has expanded considerably. 

Live drums, layers of chiming tuned percussion, machine-gun quick pianos, horns, all of this now joins even brighter, fantastical synth patterns, splashing an organic clarity around Deacon’s still massive canvases of sound.

Happily, all of this will be in Manchester on Tuesday night.

Given that Dan Deacon shows are renowned for audience participation and mass euphoria, with support from Future Islands and Adventure, this is one you could remember for years.

Dan Deacon plays Club Academy on Tuesday, June 2. £11. Call 0161 832 1111.