Dan Drohan - You're a Crusher/ Drocan! (2020)

Like so many of us surviving in the gig economy, Dan Drohan has to be nimble, flexible and adaptable in his musical life. He moves between worlds with ease, lending his drum and percussion skills to such varied projects as psych rock outfit Olden Yolk, the heartfelt folk of Maggie Rogers’ Blood Ballet (an album on which he also served as co-producer), and the most recent recordings by future pop project Dreamaway. And in his own work, he remains happily unsettled, releasing cracked electronic tunes under the name Bermuda Kid and spacious avant-pop group Comfort as well as several releases of his home-recorded drum improvisations and production experiments.

So it should come as no surprise that Drohan’s new album is as slippery and hard to pin down as anything he has lent his name to over the past decade. You’re A Crusher / drocan! presents the best of his varied talents and serves as a kind of musical marker to represent the changes his life has gone through recently.

The first half of this project—You’re a Crusher—was put together slowly over the course of two years while Drohan was still living in Brooklyn with his family. He moved to New York in 2011 after several years studying at the Berklee School of Music and playing gigs around Boston. One of the projects he took on after his relocation was élan, a quartet with guitarists Bobbie Johnson and Derek Smith, and vocalist Élan Orr. With their help, he developed the YAC material, recording demos with the group that he would then tweak and manipulate on his laptop while in the van or on airplanes during his touring gigs or quietly in his kitchen in the mornings while his son slept.

The tracks that came out of Drohan’s efforts don’t feel worried over nor have they lost any of the raw inspiration that helped spark them to life. “We Like To See (Earth)” feels like a shortwave radio jumping between stations—the pleasant ping of a synth melody getting pushed aside by a fuzzy groove wowing in and out of focus. Opener “Leave It Loading” lets a deep bass pattern flood the speakers while Drohan’s fluid drumming spars with it playfully. And the whole thing flows and zig-zags like a DJ set cooked up by a seriously warped mind.

Nearly everything about drocan! works as the polar opposite of YAC. The collection of tunes was born from the rush of excitement that came from Drohan working with a new collaborator: multi-instrumentalist Mike Cantor. The two were introduced when Cantor DJ’ed Drohan’s sister-in-law’s wedding and immediately hit it off. They met up soon thereafter at Drohan’s studio space in his new home in Massachusetts and instantly started cooking up songs together. Over the course of the month of January 2020, drocan! was brought to life.

For this project, Drohan was challenged to feature vocals more prominently. It makes for an even headier experience, a mix of dreaminess and clarity amid he and Cantor’s glistening productions matched each step of the way by their blend of live drums, MIDI triggered tones, modular synth flutters, and programmed beats. Asian and Latin rhythms collide joyously (“Passwords”); dreampop is given a trap makeover (“105”) or gets completely glitched out (“Tokyo”). Nothing is sacred, everything is allowed.

You’re A Crusher / drocan! is the perfect album for our modern era—a period where the accessibility to nearly every piece of music ever recorded has created a new generation of adventurous listeners. Drohan and his many collaborators are reflecting this era by creating boundless, border-free sounds that welcome any and all curiosity seekers. They refuse to put limits on themselves so why should you?