Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Dan Deacon’s new American sounds

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Dan Deacon is having a moment. The Baltimore-based composer/provocateur is unveiling a few connected projects this fall that have already raised the profile of the unlikely beat-making star.

His new album, a conceptual piece titled America, was released this week, arriving under an avalanche of hype from NPR, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, et al., proclaiming it a “must-hear.” He’s co-directed his first video, for the single “True Thrush,” which has also been passed around online, and yesterday — his birthday — Deacon unveiled a free app meant to change the way concertgoers experience live performances. If it works.

A fan of site-specific performances, Deacon’s live show here, presented by the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, is scheduled to take place outside the museum. Deacon’s goal is to make every concert unique, and his free app allows him to synchronize all the smartphones in the room, utilizing them as both light and sound sources. He says it should work without using any wi-fi or data from the phones. “It creates a really unique sound environment and light environment that doesn’t really currently exist. We’re encouraging everyone who’s going to the shows to download the app, because we use it in the show.”

Sounds can shift based on how attendees hold their phones. “There’s going to be times when the only sound in the room is coming out of everyone in the audience’s phones.” Phones will also shift colors. Then again, it might not work at all. He’s only been using it since last week.

Deacon is an activist at heart, and his America is not quite the same as Lee Greenwood’s. While parts of his new album sound poppier and more accessible than some of his earlier work, Deacon continues to employ dissonance and thrives on challenging his audience. The second half of the album is a four-part suite taking up 22 minutes.

“When I started, I didn’t think of my music as inaccessible at all,” he says now, almost a decade later. “I came from writing for, like, five bassoons making squeak noises. But then when I started playing shows, I was, like, ‘Oh, this is weird to people!’”

Deacon feels stuck between different worlds at times. Indie rock fans see him as a DJ, while dance clubgoers think he’s a rocker. When he performs avant-garde work in New York, he is received as a serious composer — but when he goes back to warehouse parties, they write him off as being too pop. In Hollywood, he’s now being seen as a film composer, having scored Francis Ford Coppola’s “Twixt.”

“I like that spot. I’m comfortable being the weird nerd loser who was also the prom king and vice president of the student body. Not fitting into a niche, but not disenfranchising at the same time.”

Deacon’s been given opportunities that he never expected, like the film score, and commissions for orchestras and experimental music festivals, and sees how the work has led to what he’s accomplished with America. “All that really changed the way I felt about my music. It changed the way I wrote music, because I was writing for different contexts and different people. I was writing for humans — and that’s very different.

“I know how to communicate exactly what I mean to the computer, with the software I’m used to,” he continues. “But even though I went to school, notation is a language; if you don’t use it, it starts to fade … If I’m trying to convey a complex musical idea, I know where to put the rhythm down, where the pitch is, but in the articulation and the nuance, I was so utterly rusty. Working in those other environments brought nuance back into my mindset.”

Right now, Deacon is at the beginning of a tour meant to get his ideas out to as large a crowd as possible. He thinks it just might be working.

“I’m into it!,” he says, laughing. “But I don’t want to overanalyze it. I don’t want to change the way I interpret reality. People seem to like the record, and that makes me … happy.”

Dan Deacon
with Height With Friends, Chester Endersby Gwazda, Alan Resnick, and Tomasynaha
Monday, Sept. 3
Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft
715 W. Main St.
kentuckyarts.org
$15; 4 p.m.

Photo by Josh Sisk

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Tift time

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Tift Merritt was labeled an “alt-country” rising star when she emerged around the turn of the century, but it’s a label that hasn’t fit her well as her music has evolved. Though she first gained attention singing with her fellow North Carolinians in the honky-tonk band Two Dollar Pistols, she quickly earned a solo deal and moved to New York.

Traveling Alone, due in October, is her fifth studio album. While her inspiration from forerunners like Emmylou Harris and Loretta Lynn is still in the mix, she has also absorbed aspects of rock ’n’ roll, soul and folk music, and writes like a novelist. High-profile collaborators like singer Andrew Bird, guitarist Marc Ribot, and Calexico drummer John Convertino helped her on this leg of her journey. The first album for home state label Yep Roc, it was written when she found herself adrift between managers and labels.

She defines traveling on this album as “a place so huge … often best talked about through the concrete metaphors of physical life. Outer life.” At 37, Merritt has crossed over from rookie to mid-career veteran and can reflect on her path.

She’s not an easy fit on country, folk or rock stations, and lacks the melodrama of Adele, though her songs fit comfortably next to the popular rootsy bands like Alabama Shakes or Mumford & Sons who currently keep public radio listeners happy. Which, naturally, makes her a perfect fit for WFPK’s Waterfront Wednesday concert series.

Merritt has some ties with local favorite sons My Morning Jacket, too. Album producer Tucker Martine also produced that band’s latest, singer Jim James appeared on Merritt’s previous album, and drummer Patrick Hallahan took her and her band out drinking last time they were here.

About Traveling, she continues, “I really thought about it in terms of chapters, or … like a cowboy’s journey, almost. Like different towns that you come to, and you have an experience. Yet, at the same time, I think this record is very much about that journey on the inside, rather than on the outside. It’s about the places you get pushed to, and where you find your line in the sand.

“All my work is about this, but (it’s about) the power of the individual. Being an outsider … strength comes not from ‘There are no rules, there is no meaning,’ but, ‘This is how I do it. This is meaningful to me.’ Differentiating that from what the rest of the world told you — I think that is a very interesting moment. Does that make sense, or is that a load of crap?”

She has changed, and so, too, has the business she’s chosen. “I’ve been doing this for long enough to know that the best place for my expectations is in my work … my canvas. I can’t ever predict how it affects other people. I’m certainly not somebody who plays the music business game with a smile on my face.” A big laugh comes up from somewhere deep inside and takes her over.

WFPK’s Waterfront Wednesday
with Jukebox the Ghost, Tift Merritt and Whistle Peak
Wednesday, Aug. 29
Waterfront Park, Big Four Lawn
wfpk.org
Free; 6 p.m.

Photo by Taylor Pemberton

c. 2012 LEO Weekly

Bienvenidos a World Fest

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“We are a global city. We celebrate our differences, and that’s what makes us a unique city,” says Mayor Greg Fischer. It’s time again for what might be his favorite annual event, World Fest, a celebration of multiculturalism meant to welcome newcomers into Louisville’s socio-economic fabric.

For a music-loving mayor, it’s a good excuse to look official and shake hands with the people while gettin’ funky to some spicy salsa, Bollywood beats and raucous reggae. Veteran booker Ken Clay has assembled dozens of acts from here to Asia and back again, in addition to offering up food, art, education and civic programs.

LEO: What do you think is the most important aspect of the entire weekend?
Greg Fischer: I think the message I want people to realize is, “Wow! We are an international city.” We’re increasingly international, global, so they visually see it, they smell it, they taste it, they hear it at World Fest. Hopefully, what it is is an outlook. We should be one of the great international cities in the country, and World Fest brings it all together — for those who are in the middle of it, or those who are just discovering it for the first time.

LEO: What can you do to interest people who might not otherwise think it sounds like fun for them?
GF: That’s where I think music comes into play. It’s interesting — when I go to some of the stages (in recent years), you’ll see some people you see around at different music events who are really plugged in and know what’s going on. They say it’s outstanding, they feel like they’ve discovered something. So, to get that message out to the broader group of musicphiles in the city, so they understand what’s happening — they might think, “Oh, that’s just a festival on the Belvedere,” as opposed to a great, free, three-day music festival.

I think, as we get that out there, they see the food and everything else that’s going on, they’ll reflect on the globalized city we’re becoming and how important it is for us to be competitive in the world. If you’re not a global city, you’re not going to be relevant much longer.

LEO: There’s probably some people who, with the economy still struggling, are concerned about competing for jobs. What do you say to them?
GF: There’s a higher rate of entrepreneurship with internationals and immigrants. They create jobs, and they help grow the economy and make it bigger; they provide customers, as well. People who are best prepared are gonna win. So, I wouldn’t have a scarcity mentality looking at it that way. It’s making the pot bigger, and, certainly, growing our international community does that.

LEO: What’s your favorite part of the weekend — the music, the food, the people?
GF: Yeah, the people. You see the wonderment in people’s eyes, whether it be multi-generational Louisvillians who are proud to see their city internationalizing, or it’s that first generation or immigrant that’s appreciative and excited to be recognized and acknowledged as American citizens and Louisvillians, and are proud to be part of the team. You get it on both sides and put that together, and it’s a magic atmosphere for the festival. It’s a lot of fun, people are proud to be there.

World Fest
Aug. 31-Sept. 2
The Belvedere
485 W. Main St.
worldfestlouisville.com
Free; 11 a.m.

c. 2012 LEO Weekly