Dan Deacon

Dan Deacon (born August 28, 1981) is an American composer and electronic musician based out of Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to his albums, Deacon also has a renowned reputation for his live shows, where large scale audience participation and interaction is often a major element of the performance.

Deacon was born and raised in the suburban Long Island, New York community of West Babylon. He later attended the Conservatory of Music at State University of New York at Purchase in Purchase, New York where, in addition to performing his solo material, he played in many bands, including tuba for Langhorne Slim and guitar in the improvisational grindcore band Rated R, and had a small mixed chamber ensemble. He completed his graduate studies in electro-acoustic and computer music composition. He studied under composer and conductor Joel Thome and Dary John Mizelle. In 2004 he moved to Baltimore, Maryland and moved into the Copycat Building and, along with friends from SUNY Purchase, formed Wham City, an arts and music collective.

His first two albums as a solo artist, “Meetle Mice” and “Silly Hat vs Egale Hat,” were released on CD-R on Standard Oil Records in 2003 while he was a student at SUNY Purchase. The albums were collections of both computer music and live recordings of ensemble pieces. They are markedly different from his first popular record, 2007's “Spiderman of the Rings,” in that they contain almost no tracks where Deacon sings or uses vocal manipulation. Most of the pieces are instrumentals or sound collages.

He followed those two albums with a set of records made up of sine wave compositions. “Green Cobra is Awesome Vs The Sun” was a 42-minute piece consisting of six slowly drifting sine waves. “Goose On The Loose” was a 60-minute piece featuring a Wavetek 180 signal generator being processed through a DigiTech Whammy and a Line 6 DL4.

His next two releases were the EPs, “Twacky Cats,” on Comfort Stand Recordings and, “Acorn Master,” on Psych-o-path Records. “Spiderman of the Rings” was Deacon's first commercially distributed full-length album, released by Carpark Records in May 2007.

“Ultimate Reality” was released as a DVD in November 2007 and marked a return to composing music for others to perform. The pieces for percussion and electronics were performed by Jeremy Hyman of Ponytail and Kevin Omeara of Videohippos. The pieces were set to collaged and heavily altered video created by Deacon's long time friend and collaborator Jimmy Joe Roche.

Deacon's next album, entitled “Bromst,” was released in March 2009. It was produced by Chester Gwazda at Snow Ghost Studios in Whitefish, Montana and featured live instruments including player piano and a variety of percussion instruments.

Deacon released, “America,” his first studio album for Domino Records, in August 2012. It blended acoustic and synthetic sounds and featured Deacon working with other musicians, rather than a completely solo artist.