Brian Dewan - Music

Music

Dewan has a cross-genre approach to music, although he is predominantly known for his folk-tinged vocal stylings and instrumental electronic music, which on a performance level are generally mutually exclusive. His vocal repertoire references folk music, hymns, popular songs from bygone eras (especially topical songs from the 19th and early 20th centuries), and rock music. He also composes original songs reflecting these influences. These genres permeate his first two full-length albums, Brian Dewan Tells the Story (1993, Bar None Records) and The Operating Theatre (1998, Instinct Records). His songs often contemplate the nature of submission to authority, often in a storytelling manner. His lyrics are by turns humorous, philosophical, and contemplative. His historical song repertoire often betrays a post-modern irony in the re-telling.

In live performance, Dewan accompanies his singing with a home-built electric zither, outfitted with eight humbucker pickups and 88 strings, sometimes piped through a leslie cabinet or guitar effects pedals. He also plays a variety of other instruments, including autoharp, koto, organ, and accordion. His electronic music, either solo or in collaboration with his cousin, Leon Dewan, tends to be more sprawling and free-form, often evoking the dissonance of early analog electronic music.

Dewan has worked with They Might Be Giants, Blue Man Group, Sesame Street, Flaming Fire, Jed Davis, The Music Tapes, Loser's Lounge, The Shondes and The Musical Stones of Skiddaw. He is a member of the Raymond Scott Orchestrette, a group dedicated to reinterpreting Scott's compositions, and appeared on their 2002 album Pushbutton Parfait. He also composes and performs with the Patient Island Singers, a project loosely centered around the topic of Roosevelt Island.

Dewan's 2007 album Words Of Wisdom (Eschatone Records) was the first in a series of folk archival recordings called the Humanitarium Series. Each record in the series will collect a set of song artifacts by theme: temperance, school songs, hymns, folksongs ancient and modern, institutional music, advertisement and persuasion, ditties, jingles, and popular music.

He has also performed a song for the original soundtrack CD for the "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" television series, though this track was commissioned for the CD and never used in any other context.