A true American original, Dan Deacon fuses avant-garde techniques and dance beats with the grassroots spirit and lack of pretense of punk rock. A former student of electro-acoustic composition, Deacon got his start playing anarchic warehouse shows as a member of Baltimore's Wham City collective, belting out sing-along refrains and cartoonish synth melodies. But there's a more serious side to his music, which also draws on African rhythms and classical minimalism, giving albums like 2012's hopeful America added complexity and combining joy with rigour to truly utopian effect.