by Patrick Pilch (@pratprilch)
Drummer, composer, producer and visual artist Dan Drohan is not to be pigeonholed. The multidisciplinary creative drums and produces for several notably different projects. He’s done studio work for Bad Anna, Sharks in the Deep End, and Maggie Rogers, and drummed with Tei Shi, Olden Yolk, Dreamaway and more. All these projects are quite unalike. If his recording credits were a mirror, Drohan’s latest solo record shatters all reflective expectations. You’re a Crusher/drocan! is cracked in jagged paths and filled with invisible ink; the record colors subtle melody between sawtooth lines of erratic noise and elastic percussion. Dan Drohan darts between ideas, styles and motifs, gracefully sliding in and out of maximalist focus.
What makes You’re a Crusher/drocan! so compelling is its boundlessness. The opportunities Drohan creates with each idea is staggering, at times overwhelming. Each song is a planet in itself; each album side, a galaxy. You’re a Crusher/drocan! is two halves, its second arguably poppier than its first. The difference between each cluster of tracks is their origin. The entirety of drocan! was put together in January 2020 with multi-instrumentalist Mike Cantor, whereas the songs on You’re a Crusher came after two years of tweaking and manipulating.
For all its layered complexities, You’re a Crusher/drocan! feels like a pop record in denial. With each experimental sidestep, Drohan reliably pivots to something more approachable. You can hear bits of Thundercat’s jazz-pop eccentricities in the record’s arrangement, and it’s near impossible to separate Panda Bear’s influence from Drohan’s vocal textures. The drummer pays incredible homage to his predecessors and influences. “The Garden” sounds like Os Mutantes reinterpreting Centipede Hz-era Animal Collective. If an alien jazz drummer and Aphex Twin tried to reinvent ska they’d get the jumpy Crusher cut “Cupofdro.” Drohan’s compositional maneuvers represent the musician’s volatile life changes interpreted by his raw creative talent. You’re a Crusher/drocan! rarely settles; the record is a curiously warped pop project that’s as playful as it is focused.