“Right now, my favourite place to make music is this large closet in my basement that I’ve turned into a studio. It’s big enough for three people to fit into, with a large makeshift table made out of a broken door and some milk crates. It gets a nice sound, not much room sound, just as I like it. It’s about 7ft x 10ft. The walls are covered with thick fabric (green and blue) as well as some old childhood blankets. There is also a wall of shelves that hold my records, books, tools and other items you’d find in a nerd’s studio. It smells of cheap incense and dirty man.
I have a lot of equipment in there at the moment because I’m recording. Right in front of me are a bunch of bells and music boxes, several delay pedals, a few Oscillators, a couple of pitch shift pedals, Mbox, microphone, vocoder, talkbox, my computer, and a ghost in the dark ghost. What I need most when I’m in there is water and oranges. I’ve been down here everyday for the past two weeks from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. I only leave to shit or to empty the bottles of piss.
This record has been a mixture of isolation and group work. Most of the tracks are for a percussion ensemble with electronics and voice, so the first month of recording was done with my friend Chester who recorded all the mallet percussion and the kits. The last week was just me, doing vocoders, Oscillators and voice by myself but yesterday and today I recorded the choir. When it comes to recording, the pieces are composed months prior. The recording process starts with me trying to recreate what I do live, but I normally change it and build upon it. It’s fun to try out new things in a controlled enviroment. I also try to record at least one improvisation every few days.
This space is just really cosy. Sadly, I’m moving in two weeks and I’m really going to miss it. It has a charm like few of the rooms I’ve had in my life. I grew up in the basement so maybe thats why I like it so much. The subway rolls by all the time and rumbles up the room, which sounds like it makes recording quite hard, but it adds to its’ charm. It will be fun to pack everything up and try to recreate it somewhere else.”
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Hailting from Baltimore, Dan Deacon is a key player in the Wham City underground arts collective. At his legendary shows, Deacon creates riotous party tunes from what looks like a table of taped-up junk in the middle of the dancefloor – never on the stage. He plays the Future Days Festival this Saturday June 14th at Vicar Street, Dublin with Jape, Deerhunter, White Williams and High Places. According to the promoters, expect “plenty of new tunes, favourites from the Spiderman of the Rings LP, and plenty of singalongs, dance-offs and god knows what else.” For more information, visit www.myspace.com/dandeacon.
Musical Rooms 