Dan Deacon Talks New Album "Bromst": "It's Not Dance Music"

On his last album, Spiderman of the Rings, Baltimore electronic-music maven Dan Deacon threw a giddy neon dance party — sort of like kids' music for very hip kids, complete with Woody Woodpecker samples. On the follow-up, Bromst, arriving March 24th via Carpark Records, he aimed for a more substantial sound. "If the first record was like some tasty hors d'oerves, this is the meal," Deacon said on the phone from his hometown, where he just wrapped up the Baltimore Round Robin tour, featuring several of the city's critically acclaimed new bands, including Beach House and Double Dagger. Bromst, which Deacon spent three years writing and recording, uses more acoustic instrumentation, including marimba, glockenspiel, winds and brass, and fewer gimmicky samples than its predecessor, giving it a more lush, organic vibe. But Deacon, who built a scene largely around high-energy live shows, says the new sounds won't stop people from grooving. "I think people can dance to it, but it's not as much 'dance music,' " he says. "It's less about dance and more about motion."

Last spring Rolling Stone named Deacon's Baltimore scene one of the Best of Rock, and also spotlighted the red-hot female MC duo Get Em Mamis and onetime RS Breaking band Beach House. The Bromst track list — which includes a song for Gwen Stefani, perhaps? — is right here:

1. "Build Voice"
2. "Red F"
3. "Paddling Ghost"
4. "Snookered"
5. "Of The Mountains"
6. "Surprise Stefani"
7. "Wet Wings"
8. "Woof Woof"
9. "Slow With Horns / Run For Your Life"
10. "Baltihorse"
11. "Get Older"

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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