Crippled Symmetry (What Would Morton Feldman Do?): Read "Dan Deacon Readies 'Sad' New EP"

Thursday, April 15

Read "Dan Deacon Readies 'Sad' New EP"

By Tom Breihan for Pitchfork:

On his Facebook earlier this week, Dan Deacon announced, "New self-released EP of sad songs for console organ and voice will be out in a few weeks on a limited run of vinyl, cassette, and CD-R. More info on that soon. Also, new tour dates have been posted and next week I start recording two new albums with the ensemble, one of ragers and one of meditative ragers. Two thousand zen."

Whew. In an email to Pitchfork, Deacon confirmed a few details about what he has going on. For one thing, the only instruments on the EP will be an electric console organ and Deacon's own untreated voice. It'll include a cover of the Everly Brothers' "All I Have to Do Is Dream".

On the EP, Deacon writes, "I've been wanting to release a record like this for some time and my current breakup has been the perfect catalyst to motivate me to finally do it... Unlike my other releases, this music will be much more low key, sparse, and I find the songs to be sad, although others might disagree."

Deacon says that he may release the EP under a name other than his own, just so he can play live without disappointing or confusing the party-up segments of his audience. No word yet on a title or release date.

As mentioned, Deacon's also working on two new albums with his backing ensemble. In his email, he explains the difference between the two full-lengths: "One album will be four larger-form pieces (around 20 minutes each, trying to keep them that length so they fill the side of a 12"). These are for my ensemble plus a large strings and brass section. The other will be more pop-song-length pieces, but a lot of the songs tend to be nosier and harder than my previous work... I would say I have 75% of these two albums finished, and I plan on writing the other 25% in the studio. I've always treated the studio as an afterthought and am always kind of rushing the process. It'll be really nice to just record at my own pace and finally be able to use the studio as an instrument to compose with/in, rather than as just a tool. I think it'll really help this work stand out from my previous releases."

In other Deacon news, he's scrapped plans to release Bronst, the planned companion piece to his 2009 album Bromst.

On 04/01/05, Dan Deacon played Soundlab with Height w/Bow, Chugga Chugga.

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Who is Morton Feldman? (And Why Should I Care)?

A towering figure in 20th-century New Music, Morton Feldman radically re-imagined the possibilities of musical form through an approach to sound correlated with abstract painting. In 1973, Feldman became the Edgard Varèse Professor of Music at the University at Buffalo, a title he retained until his death in 1987. Feldman's tenure is emblematic of a renaissance period of progressive creative activity that brought Buffalo's cultural affiliations international acclaim.

What Would Morton Feldman Do? situates its speculations on multiple levels, firstly imagining the artist as an angry young man contemplating his social calendar. But WWMFD also addresses a larger crisis of relevance facing experimental culture in the 21st century. WWMFD builds on the city's radical legacy, but views history as a challenge to the present - what are you going to do NOW? WWMFD imagines its avant-classical hero wandering the crumbling streets in search of the new and the now, not through escapist longings for another era's modernisms but in concert with the cause of action necessitated by absence.

In this regard, WWMFD begins where Basta! Or Too Much! (We Will Always Know Ourselves), an avant-pop zine published locally from 1997-2001, left the page for the "stage." Collecting de facto proposals for civic reinvention utilizing the fractured experiments of Buffalo's postmodernist cultural community as blueprints, Basta! concerned itself not with art dialogue per se, but with changing what it means to grow up in a shrinking city. From these proposals (which tended to embrace rather than resist post-industrial existential crises) emerged a series of large scale multi-media events (Murder the Word) and ultimately, the performance program at Big Orbit Gallery. Big Orbit's "Soundlab" series, for which the venue of the same name was founded, was conceived of as a multi-faceted, continuously evolving "workshop" for the exploration of contemporary post-cultural incentives. Coming full circle, WWMFD hopes to re-contextualize Soundlab's explorations, and to include other relevant local sound and performance activities in its critical orbit.

Crippled Symmetry (What Would Morton Feldman Do?)

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Thursday, April 15

Read "Dan Deacon Readies 'Sad' New EP"

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