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When Randolph Chabot, the 22-year-old auteur behind Deastro,
is asked about the title of his new album, he recounts a dream about a
prince, a kingdom, an evil King of Darkness, and a search for the
mythical “Moondagger,” the bearer of which wields ultimate power. And while Moondagger, Deastro’s
astonishing new album, does contain traces of that dream–in all of its
bittersweet, fantasy-novel glory–the record itself is infinitely more
down-to-earth, containing the sort of unrelentingly earnest,
inspirational pop music that could only come from a kid weaned on
fiction but living desperately, joyously in the here-and-now.
Moondagger expands upon the positive electro-pop of Keepers – Deastro’s
home-recorded opus from 2008 – with the addition of a full band.
Thankfully, the mercurial, prolific Chabot still seems blissfully
unaware of his music’s genreless-ness. Thick, atmospheric production
obscures bright, starry-eyed melodies; ecstatic synth squiggles dance
around new-wave beats on songs about Nordics, toxic crusaders, and
geometric shapes; arrangement ideas bounce off one another within
ambitious song structures that swerve left, then right, then left again.
And yet underneath all of their seeming irreverence, Deastro’s
songs are breathtakingly down-to-earth – melodic slices of synth-led
experimental pop whose energy builds with each iteration of the chorus,
hitting emotional peak after emotional peak until they collapse in a
heap. The album-opening “Biophelia” can barely contain its
heart-in-throat urgency, Chabot’s rapid-fire delivery slicing through
layers of shoegaze-y ambience; “Vermillion Plaza,” plucky synth
arpeggios ricochet off cavernous echo-chamber walls, Chabot pleads for
human contact, asking “would you be my son, ‘cause of all of mine have
died?”
Moondagger hums with
Chabot’s faith in the goodness of his family and friends (“People are
so amazing that I can’t help but write about what makes them who they
are,” Chabot says), and yet, there’s a lurking sense that the
optimist’s fight is never over. The title of Moondagger’s
centerpiece, “Daniel Johnston Was Stabbed in the Heart with the
Moondagger by the King of Darkness and His Ghost Is Writing this Song
as a Warning to All of Us,” says it all: Among all the Beach Boys
backing vocals and keyboard confetti-curliques, there’s an eternal
battle raging; with Deastro, Randolph Chabot is out to win the war for the forces of good. |
