Dan Deacon releases new single & video "Become A Mountain"

Dan Deacon releases new single & video "Become A Mountain"

“[‘Sat By A Tree’ is] a track that’s frenetically alive, zooming along with countless minimalistic layers, electronic and orchestral, from dance-floor drumbeats to hoedown fiddles all surging with major-key exuberance.” - The New York Times

“Deacon's whiz-bang bleeps and ecstatic melodics expand as the process of putrefaction comes full circle — the [‘Sat By A Tree’] video ends ‘as a prequel to the life of a plant rather than the death of the person in the video,’ Deacon offers. We live! We die! We live again!” - NPR Music

“[Mystic Familiar is] a sort of magnum opus—11 climbing, cascading, all-consuming songs that sweep your senses, tug at your heartstrings, and tap on your inner psyche.” - Baltimore Magazine

Today, Dan Deacon releases “Become A Mountain,” a new single and video from Mystic Familiar, his forthcoming album out January 31st

Following lead single “Sat By A Tree,” “an energetic bed of sonic bliss” (Paste), album opener “Become A Mountain” is a startlingly vulnerable shift in a songbook abundant with characters, metaphors, and distorted vocals. For the first time ever on record, Deacon presents his natural singing voice, unprocessed and with only minimal, all-acoustic accompaniment. Its animated video was created by Spain-based studio Rapapawn.


On the track, Deacon said:

"During the 4 years over which I composed the songs that became Mystic Familiar, I began going to therapy and started a meditation practice. I felt raw and vulnerable while making this album, and I wanted the music to reflect that.

Like many people who’ve been in a dark mindset for a long time, self-compassion and non-judgmental thinking were a real challenge for me, entirely new habits that needed to be learned  basically from scratch. When I would try to embrace having positive thoughts, they didn’t feel like my own, but rather another entity’s thoughts trying to speak to me. While writing, I began thinking of these thoughts as a Mystic Familiar (my own personal supernatural companion) trying to communicate with me. Externalizing the thoughts made them easier to fully realize and reflect upon.

The lyrics in 'Become A Mountain' lay out the framework for the album’s overall concept: a Narrator and their Mystic Familiar. Our Narrator, in the opening verse and choruses, is trying to learn how to be self-compassionate, to live a life in the present while being able to deal with self-doubt and anxiety in a lifetime of great flux and foundational transformations. Meanwhile, our Mystic Familiar, in verse two and the pre-choruses, tries to help guide the transformations of our narrator through mantras coaxing me to be present in the now, even while also being an element of chaos itself.” 

Watch “Sat By A Tree” Video HERE
Watch Episode 1 of Behind Mystic Familiar HERE
Watch Episode 2 of Behind Mystic Familiar HERE

To celebrate the album release, he will be in-store at Rough Trade East in London, for a special on-stage Mystic Familiar masterclass and album signing.

Dan Deacon Europe Tour Dates:

Thu. Jan. 30 - London, UK @ Rough Trade East (album signing & record release)
Fri. Jan. 31 - Dublin, IE @ Grand Social
Sat. Feb. 1 - Glasgow, UK @ Classic Grand
Sun Feb. 2 – Berlin, DE @ Heimathafen (CTM Festival)
Tue. Feb. 4 - Leeds, UK @ Brudenell
Thu. Feb. 6 - London, UK @ Scala
Fri. Feb. 7 – Dijon, FR @ Generiq Festival
Sat. Feb. 8 – Geneva, CH @ Antigel Festival
Mon. Feb. 10 - Paris, FR @ La Maroquinerie

Dan Deacon Mystic Familiar

Album | 31st January 2020

Dan Deacon’s most emotionally open and transcendent record, Mystic Familiar’s 11 kaleidoscopic tracks of majestic synth-pop exponentially expand his sound with unfettered imagination and newfound vulnerability. It’s the first album where Deacon presents his natural singing voice, unprocessed and with only minimal accompaniment; a vulnerable shift in a songbook abundant with characters, metaphors, and distorted vocals. 

Tracklisting

  • 1Become a Mountain
  • 2Hypnagogic
  • 3Sat By A Tree
  • 4Arp I: Wide Eyed
  • 5Arp II: Float Away
  • 6Arp III: Far From Shore
  • 7Arp IV: Any Moment
  • 8Weeping Birch
  • 9Fell Into the Ocean
  • 10My Friend
  • 11Bumble Bee Crown King

Dan Deacon Mystic Familiar

Album | 31st January 2020

Dan Deacon’s most emotionally open and transcendent record, Mystic Familiar’s 11 kaleidoscopic tracks of majestic synth-pop exponentially expand his sound with unfettered imagination and newfound vulnerability. It’s the first album where Deacon presents his natural singing voice, unprocessed and with only minimal accompaniment; a vulnerable shift in a songbook abundant with characters, metaphors, and distorted vocals. 

Tracklisting

  • 1Become a Mountain
  • 2Hypnagogic
  • 3Sat By A Tree
  • 4Arp I: Wide Eyed
  • 5Arp II: Float Away
  • 6Arp III: Far From Shore
  • 7Arp IV: Any Moment
  • 8Weeping Birch
  • 9Fell Into the Ocean
  • 10My Friend
  • 11Bumble Bee Crown King
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