As I mentioned when reviewing the Live in Seattle album by Moufang / Czamanski at #30, I don’t listen to a ton of “electronic music” these days. That’s not to say there aren’t a few bands with fully-synthesized music on this year’s countdown, but I wouldn’t call those other bands “dance music.” Dan Deacon, coming in at #25 with his third album, Gliss Riffer, is 100% dance music.

I posted about Deacon earlier this year, when my son pointed me to Deacon’s awesome video for his song “When I Was Done Dying,” and while I had heard the song prior to my son mentioning it to me, I hadn’t given the album its due. Since then, I haven’t really stopped listening to it. I’ve gone back to it at least once a week (partly due to my son requesting that I play “his song” anytime he gets in the car).

“When I Was Done Dying” is the highlight of the album, but there’s some great variety of music, vocals and beats across the album, making it super fun. Speaking of vocals — I really enjoy how Deacon handles them on this album, using them as just another instrument, breaking them up electronically, rendering them unintelligible and otherworldly, or running them through enough distortion to sound robotic. Without that distortion, the vocals on these songs would be indistinguishable from most other electronic music. Deacon makes them his own.

Overall, this album is light and fun. Put it on, and I dare you to sit without moving. Try it; it’s impossible.

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26. Dark Bird is Home by The Tallest Man on Earth
27. Gunnera by Pfarmers
28. Swimmer to a Liquid Armchair by Ricked Wickey
29. To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar
30. Live in Seattle by Moufang / Czamanski
31. High by Royal Headache

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Past years’ Top 31s

My seven year old son pointed me to this video. I didn’t even know he knew what music videos were, but here he is, pointing me to a video of a song I knew but didn’t know he knew. Parenthood is awesome.

So, here’s a video created for Adult Swim’s show Off The Air, one of the many truly bizarre animated wonders that fills the late-night Cartoon Network timeslot. The video features nine different animators (Jake Fried, Chad Vangaalen, Dimitri Stankowicz, Colin White, Taras Hrabowsky, Anthony Schepperd, Masanobu Hiraoka, Caleb Wood, KOKOFreakbean), each with a unique style, illustrating a portion of the excellent Dan Deacon song “When I Was Done Dying.” I’d first heard the song on KEXP earlier this year, which prompted me to download the album. It’s great, and this video just makes it all the more interesting.

This is apparently not the first time Deacon has teamed up with Off The Air’s director/editor Dave Hughes. The entire second season of the show is a long-form music video for 22 minutes from Deacon’s 2012 album America. The song featured above is from Deacon’s 2015 album Glass Riffer.

#25 on the 2015 Bacon Top 31

Dan Deacon — When I Was Done Dying