Early student work His first two releases as a solo artist,
Meetle Mice and
Silly Hat vs Egale Hat were released on
CD-R on Standard Oil Records in 2003 while he was a student at SUNY Purchase. The albums are collections of both computer music and live recordings of ensemble pieces, and are markedly different from the electronic-pop body of work that began with his first popular record, 2007's
Spiderman of the Rings, in that most of the pieces are instrumentals and sound collages, and they contain almost no tracks where Deacon sings or uses vocal manipulation. He followed those two albums with a set of records made up of
sine wave compositions,
Green Cobra Is Awesome Vs The Sun and
Goose on the Loose. His next two releases were the EPs
Twacky Cats on Comfort Stand Recordings and
Acorn Master on Psych-o-path Records.
Studio albums Spiderman of the Rings was Deacon's first commercially distributed full-length album, released by
Carpark Records in May 2007. The album was well received and was included in the Best New Music section of
Pitchfork. The album was ranked as number 24 on the website's "Top 50 Albums of 2007".
Spiderman of the Rings marked the beginning of Deacon's body of recorded work as an electronic-pop musician; Deacon has stated the success of this record "completely changed my life in every possible way." The collaborative video-art piece
Ultimate Reality was released as a DVD in November 2007 by
Carpark Records and marked a return to composing music for others to perform. The pieces for percussion and electronics were performed by Jeremy Hyman of
Ponytail and Kevin Omeara of Videohippos. The sonic pieces were set to collaged and heavily altered video created by Deacon's long time friend and collaborator
Jimmy Joe Roche. It was produced by Chester Gwazda at Snow Ghost Studios in Whitefish, Montana and features live instruments including player piano and a variety of percussion instruments. The album was well received;
Pitchfork gave it an 8.5/10 and placed it into the "best new music" section. The album placed 46th among
Pitchfork "Top 50 Albums of 2009". His album
America was released on August 28, 2012, on
Domino Records in the US. Deacon has described the album as representing his conflicted feelings toward the country and world he calls home: "The inspiration for the music was my love of cross-country travel, seeing the landscapes of the United States, going from east to west and back again over the course of seasons. "The lyrics are inspired by my frustration, fear and anger towards the country and world I live in and am a part of. As I came closer to finishing the album these themes began to show themselves more frequently and greater clarity. There seemed no better world to encapsulate both inspirations than the simple beauty found in the word America."
Gliss Riffer was released on Domino Records on February 24, 2015. Deacon describes the album title as "something that auto-correct wants to make sure that no one can actually type." The album was produced by Deacon alone, who notes that he created the album "trying to confront my own anxieties or insecurities and the stresses in my life."
Gliss Riffer yielded the singles "Feel the Lightning" and "Learning to Relax", as well as a viral video animated in the
exquisite corpse style for "When I Was Done Dying", produced by
Adult Swim and featuring the work of nine different animators.
Gliss Riffer received four-star reviews from both
The Guardian and
AllMusic. In his A− review of the album for
Consequence of Sound, Derek Staples noted that "the universal motifs of his discography are now refracted through a more personal lens", and praised the record's "new lyrical depth". In 2017, Deacon released a 10th-anniversary edition of
Spiderman of the Rings that also included the soundtrack to 2007's
Ultimate Reality. Deacon produced and co-wrote the album
Riddles by
Ed Schrader's Music Beat, released March 2, 2018 on
Carpark Records. Writing for NPR's
All Songs Considered,
Bob Boilen described
Riddles as "a fascinating piece of work that is both ugly and beautiful, often at the same time", likening its sound to late-1970s records by
Suicide and
Pere Ubu. Nina Corcoran noted in
Pitchfork that "You can hear Deacon's style, especially that of 2012's
America, all over this album: the gleeful piano fluttering in 'Riddles,' the manic percussion buried in fuzz on 'Dizzy Devil,' the thick wall of synth on 'Kid Radium. Deacon's fifth studio album,
Mystic Familiar, was released on January 31, 2020. A first video from the album, for the song "Sat By a Tree" starring
Aparna Nancherla, was released October 29, 2019. The second single from
Mystic Familiar, "Become a Mountain", was released on January 13, 2020, with a video by animation studio Rapapawn. In his 4-star review for
AllMusic, Paul Simpson characterized
Mystic Familiar as Deacon's return to "majestically arranged synth pop", characterizing its arrangements as "driving and full of excitement" and finding the album's lyrical themes of nature and inner peace "encouraging and empowering without relying on self-help clichés." For
Under the Radar, Scott Dransfield noted that
Mystic Familiar is "far and away his most personal work yet", and concluded that "the best thing about
Mystic Familiar is how the beautiful composition of the music reinforces the power of the lyrics' message." Deacon's remix of the
Future Islands single "For Sure" premiered on January 19, 2021.
Contemporary classical work In 2011, Deacon began to work more outside of the indie and pop music scenes and began working in the
contemporary classical scene and film scoring. On January 20, 2011, Deacon and percussion quartet
So Percussion premiered a new piece composed by Deacon titled "Ghostbuster Cook: Origin of the Riddler" at the Merkin Concert Hall in New York as part of the Ecstatic Music Festival.
New York magazine listed the performance as one of the top 10 classical music performances of 2011. "Ghostbuster Cook" was also performed at
The Barbican for the
Steve Reich Reverberations Festival, May 7, 2011. On February 3–4 the
Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony conducted by
Edwin Outwater premiered Deacon's first orchestral works, On January 21, 2011 it was announced that Deacon would score the film
Twixt by
Francis Ford Coppola. On August 1, 2011 "Purse Hurdler", a composition for a 27-person percussion ensemble, was premiered by the So Percussion Summer Institute at
Le Poisson Rouge in New York City. On March 2, 2012, Deacon performed with So Percussion at the
Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto Canada. His compositions "Take A Deep Breath" and "Bottles" from "Ghostbuster Cook: Origin of the Riddler" were performed. On March 20, 2012, Deacon premiered a new composition for a chamber orchestra titled "An Opal Toad with Obsidian Eyes". The piece was premiered at the 2012 Ecstatic Music Festival and was performed by the
Calder Quartet, NOW Ensemble and Deacon on electronics controlling a
Disklavier player piano. The piece was met with positive reviews. Deacon made his
Carnegie Hall debut on March 26, 2012, as part of the Carnegie Hall's American Mavericks series with So Percussion and
Matmos. The concert was a tribute to composer
John Cage to celebrate his 100th birthday. The program contained compositions by Cage and others influenced by the composer, including two works by Deacon, "Take A Deep Breath" and "Bottles" from "Ghostbuster Cook: Origin of the Riddler". This concert was also met with positive reviews. In July 2013, Deacon performed with the
Kronos Quartet as part of their "Kronos at 40" series of concerts at
Lincoln Center. The quartet and Deacon performed the world premiere of his composition "Four Phases of Conflict" on the evening of July 28, 2013.
New York City Ballet resident choreographer
Justin Peck and Deacon collaborated on "The Times Are Racing", a ballet piece set to Deacon's four-part "USA I-IV" suite from his album
America. "The Times Are Racing" had its premiere performance on January 26, 2017. Deacon collaborated with the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in the
Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall for an evening of performance and curation on January 17, 2019. The evening consisted of three sets: the orchestra presenting a selection of classic works co-curated by Deacon, including pieces by
Erik Satie and
Du Yun; a solo set by Deacon; and a collaborative set with Deacon and members of the orchestra playing expanded arrangements of Deacon's music. This concert was named Best Concert of the year in
Baltimore magazine's annual Best of Baltimore issue.
Live shows Deacon's reputation was birthed by his live shows. When playing solo he usually performs on floor level within the audience, his musical devices being set up on a low table, and surrounded by the crowd. In stark contrast to Deacon's electronic performances, the Bromst tour was with a 14-person ensemble of members of various Baltimore bands including
So Percussion,
Future Islands, and Chester Gwazda. He was accompanied by various acts including Nuclear Power Pants. This tour is also notable for the musicians' use of a
vegetable oil powered bus. In the summer of 2009, Dan Deacon went on tour with two other notable acts,
Deerhunter, and
No Age, on the "No Deachunter" tour. In the fall of 2009, Dan Deacon was forced to cancel the small remainder of his North American tour, which included shows at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in
Troy, New York and
Connecticut College in
New London, Connecticut due to health complications involving a battle with acute
sciatica, all of which were rescheduled in winter of 2010. For his
America tour, Deacon created a smartphone app that synchronizes with the live show. It is usually used during the song "True Thrush".
Digital video Deacon recorded the track "
Drinking Out of Cups". In 2006,
Liam Lynch created a video to accompany the piece. The compilation has been viewed more than 20 million times on
YouTube. As the video spread, rumors of what the video was and how it was made quickly began forming. One popular rumor is that it is a recording of someone on
LSD locked in a closet. Deacon has stated numerous times that this is not true. He collaborated with Wham City Comedy, on
Live Forever as You Are Now with Alan Resnick, an infomercial parody, created for
Adult Swim and "Showbeast" the web series created and directed by
Ben O'Brien.
Film composer and curator In September 2010, Deacon collaborated with video artist
Jimmy Joe Roche at the
Incubate festival in
Tilburg, The Netherlands. While in residency there, Deacon and Roche worked on a new piece of video art. Material was shot at 't Schop, a farm in
Hilvarenbeek, and in the area surrounding
Tilburg. During the festival, the movie was shown at the farm before Deacon's performance. Together with Jimmy Joe Roche and film critic Eric Allen Hatch, Dan Deacon curated and hosted the
Gunky's Basement Film Series, a
Maryland Film Festival series of films that are favorites of these friends and collaborators, including
RoboCop,
The Shining, and
Something Wild. Deacon's score for
Theo Anthony's 2017 documentary
Rat Film was issued on October 13, 2017 as the inaugural release on the new Domino Soundtracks imprint. During the recording of the score, Deacon experimented with the rodent subjects, placing rats onto a custom fiberglass table with sensors on each corner. "I thought it would be interesting to set up a group of theremins to be controlled by rats moving around an enclosure (the volumes and pitches would always be fluctuating based on where/how the rats moved)", he explained in a statement. "Using the data and patterns collected from the rat Theremin performance, as well as impulse data from recordings of rat brain activity, I began to compose the bulk of the score." Deacon appears as himself in the 2014 film
Song One. In November 2018, Deacon released
Time Trial, his original soundtrack score to Finlay Pretsell's cycling documentary. Deacon's scores for both
Rat Film and
Time Trial were nominated for Best Original Score in the annual
Cinema Eye Honors. Other films scored by Deacon include the feature documentaries
Well Groomed and
And We Go Green, and the
ESPN 30 for 30 short
Subject to Review. Deacon also contributed original music to the score of
Francis Ford Coppola's 2011 horror film
Twixt, starring
Val Kilmer. Deacon scored three projects that premiered at the 2021
Sundance Film Festival:
Albert Birney and
Kentucker Audley's narrative feature
Strawberry Mansion,
Theo Anthony's documentary feature
All Light, Everywhere, and the documentary series
Philly D.A. In 2021, Deacon also scored
Jessica Kingdon's feature documentary
Ascension, which premiered at the 2021
Tribeca Film Festival, winning both Best Documentary Feature and the Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director. Deacon's scores for
Ascension and
All Light, Everywhere were both nominated for Outstanding Original Score at the 2022
Cinema Eye Honors, with
Ascension taking home the prize in that category. With his recent work on
Hustle,
Venom: The Last Dance and
Rez Ball, Deacon has shifted focus from scoring
independent documentary films to feature-length
narrative films for wider audiences. As of 2025,
Venom: The Last Dance is the highest grossing film he has scored. ==Discography==