Speaking from beyond the grave, Andy Warhol talks with Jasper Dean about the latter’s love for Beat poets and Cameron Winter. True biographical statements emerge from the charming fictional exchange, part of the 22-year-old model-musician’s self-published Communist Party Animal zine, as do heartwarming sentiments. That same blurring of artifice and sincerity informs their debut full-length, TOY COLLAGES. It marks a sharp departure from Dean’s run of bedroom-pop singles and last year’s subdued indie-pop EP, pivoting towards rowdy, absurd post-punk and electro-pop.
The Detroit-based musician’s frenetic mishmash of sounds recalls Le Tigre’s most vibrant, out-there sensibilities. Their music shares the overpowering fuzz and oversaturated production of indie-sleaze revival acts like The Dare, The Hellp, and Snow Strippers, but Dean is equally interested in parodying these aesthetics as in borrowing them. (On one track, seedy, need-to-fit-in, social-climbing, appearance-focused scene darlings are blown up into caricatures of French-speaking, sunglasses-donning, mystery-reveling posers.) But beneath TOY COLLAGES’s cartoonish theatrics, synth arpeggios, and underwater vocal effects lies an anxious question: What happens when you perform so many versions of yourself that you lose track of what’s underneath?
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Despite a litany of sound effects—like Mario Kart-y trills and animal noises—and a clear more-is-more mentality, the LP is stacked with crisp production and unmuddled layers, flaunting Dean’s technique as its sole writer and producer. On “MARGARITA SUMMER,” a bass-driven groove is abruptly hijacked by a spoken-word refrain, as though another character seized the control room microphone with a growl; after praying to “the Patron Saint of tequila,” Dean talk-yells a verse over exhausting guitar oscillations. Elsewhere, on “MAN VS MAN,” scattered, ambiently jazzy drumming offers a brief sonic reprieve, with Dean’s hushed vocals settling into a deceptive calm. But it’s not long before the brewing pressure gives way to thrashing repetitions and Cobain-y screeches, Dean crying “I am the morning rush/I am out of touch…/I am everything you want to be.” That volatility mirrors the album’s overall mood and thematic POV; TOY COLLAGES feels like one big, bad trip, Dean careening through the existential delusions of those around them before turning toward their own.
Their satire is both self-deprecating and externally critical. In the first half of the album, Dean explores unstable characters—bearing some resemblance, perhaps, to their indie-sleaze peers—with both second-hand embarrassment and fascination. There’s the oversharing, at-times exaggerating subject of “BEST BEST FRIEND” (who’s “Telling tall tall tales, big big talking” to appear cool) and the literal party animal protagonist of “TELEMONKEY” (“Mr. Hot Shot, talk a lot, catch it on camera”)—characters who seemingly live only to be seen by others. The rabid, never-quitting tempos add to the spectacle. Darker, inward delusions of loss, claustrophobia, and isolation begin to surface on “CHERRY” (“Playing around with the fork in the outlet,” they sing, “Four by four white walls in my closet enclosure”). Tucked in the record’s second half, “SUN” dives further into the search for belonging, with lyrics turning toward a more individual sense of social displacement. On “CAPTAIN WHAT JUST HAPPENED,” the narrator yearns for guidance before realizing that—perhaps unfortunately—there’s no one else around to steer the ship. In its bridge, fuzzy riffs crash like repeated presses of a panic button, reflecting the shaky sense of self depicted in the lyrics.
On closing track “WE ARE TOTALLY DOOMED,” Dean zooms out from questions of individual identity to consider the ills of a society that fosters constant reinvention: “It’s a lie, a setup,” they sing, “3D scanned regrets that walk by the set and/Try to make the most of a lie.” On TOY COLLAGES, they’re trying on personas, finding everyone around them doing the same, and realizing contemporary life demands perpetual rebranding. Against a bright and playful musical palette—listening is not unlike watching a circus clown on LSD—Dean’s lyrics reveal earnest introspection about the not-so-funny fact that lately, it feels as if all the world’s become a stage, and we’ve been left with no choice but to build a character and play the part.
