Baltozine Roundup: Dan Deacon, Animal Collective, and more

The Baltozine Roundup is a regular feature wherein we take a look at what national periodicals are saying about Baltimore-area arts, events, people, and places. Be sure to pick up the magazines to read the full articles.

Under The Radar #42 features a cover interview with Dan Deacon by Matt Fink as part of their "Protest Issue".
"'When I first started touring, I was this loud, garish, weirdo dude,' Deacon says excitedly from his Baltimore apartment. 'I'm sure most people would still say that I'm this ridiculous asshole, but it's different now. Obviously, it should be. Spiderman of the Rings came out five years ago. If I hadn't aged in those five years, something would be horribly creepy and wrong.' ... "
The magazine also gives his new album, America, a rating of 8.5 out of 10.
"...Deacon stretches the borders of his songcraft to the limit and it's a joy to hear a showman pushing every part of an orchestra like an overheating laptop. ..." -Kyle Lemmon
Also, Animal Collective's new album, Centipede Hz gets a rating of 8.5 out of 10.
"... The follow-up to Merriweather, Centipede Hz is something of a visceral, dark yin to Merriweather's lithe, DayGlo yang, with martial drumming, more conventionally structured melodies, and the feeling that the band had the time of their lives bashing out these tunes in their practice space. ..." -John Everhart
Filter #49 gives Animal Collective's Centipede Hz 86%.
"The further afield of traditional instrumentation Animal Collective get, the tighter they rein in their compositional excesses. Hearing them play pop music is like hearing the French speak English: their tongues are carved in ways too nuanced by their native language to form all of the words correctly. And yet, we still hear what they have to say." -Marty Sartini Garner
Mojo #226 gives Deacon's America 4 out of 5 stars, saying:
"This, the follow-up to 2009's player-piano-based Bromst, finds the electronic music maverick, contemporary classical experimenter and soundtrack composer moving still further from the cartoonish party aesthetic of 2007's breakthrough Spiderman of the Rings. ... America is an explicit political statement inspired by coast-to-coast travels across the land and by ambiguous experiences as a Yankee touring Europe for the first time. ... While traces of Deacon's former giddiness punctuate America, there's an ambitiously hefty, almost John Dos Passos-like engagement with the with the ambiguities of the Land of the Free. ..." -David Sheppard
Filter Good Music Guide #40 also features a review of Dan Deacon's new record. They score it at 85%.
"The Dan Deacon machine returns from Bromst-land (relatively) leaner, (relatively) focused and (absolutely) teeming with sound. ...  a deep, heartbreaking longing emerges from under the weight of all those shifting grains, like a lost first tooth found in a bag of rice." -Marty Sartini Garner
Maximum Rocknroll #352 reviews Xerography Debt #31, edited by local zinester Davida Gypsy Breier.
"This review zine covers a fair variety of subjects, including some actual punk shit and some close-enough. ...this is a good place to hear about new-to-you zines. ... " -Jeff Mason
And finally, the current issue of CMYK (#53) has several series of judged showcases, two of which feature work by area artists Alexis Somers and Sean Kittinger.

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