At times, Dan Deacon's music is only obnoxious. The repetitive, high-register sounds and strange artificial beats can get on the listener's nerves very quickly, and sometimes seem gimmicky and amateurish. However, there are moments of real transcendence in his electronic sounds and looped vocals, and his methods for creating the music are countercultural on their own.Deacon captures rapture in "Snookered" as well as anyone can, and he does it his own way. By layering his vocals to harmonize and keeping a strong bass line under his whirling electronic giggly noises, Deacon makes use of the wall of sound technique to blast the listener into his joyful, playful and nostalgic world. While most of his lyrics are indecipherable, the line "I've been wrong so many times before/but never quite like this" truly captures a childlike wonder that embodies his approach to music. The soundscape is his playground, and he strolls the merry way across it.
The fact that Deacon does his own production and performance is a testament to his artistry and his position outside of the mainstream. His ability to conjure such complex musical arrangements from computers is staggering to someone like me, who records MIDI tracks with an amazed look on my face the entire time because of my ignorance of technology.
Also, Deacon had a hand in the viral video "Drinking out of cups," which I find hilarious and frighteningly weird.
