Dan Deacon's fleshed-out sound

Until Friday's sold-out show at First Unitarian Church, the first night of his new tour, Dan Deacon had been renowned among his rabid fans as a mad, sampling one-man band.

With iPod in hand, the Baltimore native has spun wildly on the dance floor to frantic beats and sugar-rushing electro-pop, while singing through processors that made him sound like a chipmunk.

And it was that energetic cacophony that characterized his 2007 breakthrough album, Spiderman of the Rings. As Deacon - a bespectacled, cherubic, red-haired 27-year-old with an educational background in composition - twirled around, so did his audience spin around him in a communal circle. His shows grew wilder, and became almost a tribal ritual, with Deacon as the leader.

But that was then.

At the church, he brought along a 13-member ensemble in white jumpsuits, dressed like Devo's cleanup crew, playing all manner of synthesizer, strings, malleted percussion, and horns to flesh out the songs on his richly cartoony new CD, Bromst. (Deacon reminisced, at one point, how a broken iPod at a previous Philly gig nearly ruined all.)

But this time through, Deacon was unhappy with the ruckus the insistently surging crowd wrought.

"I'm not Buddha. Don't touch me," said Deacon, self-deprecatingly, in response to a comment from a fan. Deacon had reasons to kvetch. His bus broke down in Manhattan, making him hours late. And every time the crowd gushed aggressively toward him, while he was singing and writhing in front of the stage, Deacon said he found himself with a new bruise.

Yet, with elements of Kraftwerk, Philip Glass, and Andrew W.K. in its inventive sound, Deacon & Co. ripped through each track with an undeniable oddness.

"The Crystal Cat" had a '60s go-go rhythm, a bagpipe's drone, and a vocal that sounded as if Deacon had been sucking helium. "Get Older" roared like a dozen carnival organs blasted through a plastic funnel. Though he slowed it down for a song about consequences ("Snookered"), you could not make out what he was growling about through his Vocoder's wheeze and the Burundi drumming.

Awesome stuff, Dan. Your pain was worth it.