Dan Deacon with Chester Endersby Gwazda, Alan Resnick

Dan Deacon is an outstanding composer.  He is also a goddamned instigator.  So while he made his Carnegie Hall debut this year, a few weeks later he was getting 10,000 people to do crazy dances at a massive Occupy Wall Street rally in Union Square.  Deacon has always made trailblazing music that moves people to do things they wouldn't normally do.  But on his new album, America, he takes that idea a giant step further.  "I hope the people who take the time to listen to these songs enjoy them," says Deacon, "but I hope that anyone looking for anything beyond that can find inspiration to change the world for the better."

There's some alchemy going on here.  Yes, the lyrics are full of bleak, even apocalyptic imagery, but the music is keenly hopeful, with beats that make you want to dance, teeming major keys that lift the spirit, and Deacon's voice hollering defiantly from the depths of his own joyous cacophony.  Eclipsing its own despair, the music simulates the rush of being involved in something bigger and better than yourself.

Dan Deacon shows are renowned for the spectacle of hundreds, even thousands, of jubilant people doing coordinated movement, whether it's vast, swirling circles, long, snaking lines or just over-the-top dance contests.  It's a sight to behold, but it's even more amazing to participate.  And for Deacon, what is ostensibly just "fun" started to take on a profound dimension, of people uniting and claiming physical space in an ecstatic act of empowerment.  He saw a metaphor in there, a connection with revolutionary movements like the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. America is the soundtrack of that realization — like James Brown once said, "Get up! Get into it! Get involved!"