Brian Dewan is an artist whose vision takes form equally well in many media, including art, music, audio-visual performances, decorative painting, furniture design, poetry and musical instrument design. He has produced two albums of songs and concertized extensively as a solo artist, as well as having performed in various collaborations and as a sideman.

Brian's own music roughly breaks into two categories, vocal music and electronic music. His vocal music is of a sort that tends to reference folk music, hymns, century-old popular music and rock music. His two full length albums, Brian Dewan Tells the Story (1993, Bar None Records) and The Operating Theatre (1998, Instinct Records) find him in this mode. His songs often contemplate the nature of submission to authority, and often take the form of a tale. They are by turns humoristic and contemplative. In live performance, he most often accompanies his singing with an electric zither of his own invention, 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, 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 raw sounds of early electronic music of a modernist bent.

Other artists and projects he has worked with include They Might Be Giants, Blue Man Group, Sesame Street, Flaming Fire, The Music Tapes, Loser's Lounge 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.

Brian has also created album art for others, such as the cover of David Byrne's Uh-Oh, They Might Be Giants' Lincoln, wax.on wax.off's A Lecture On Geek Mythology, and the interior artwork of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.

Beginning with Words Of Wisdom in November 2007, Brian presents The Humanitarium—a semi-annual series of folk compilations featuring songs he’s unearthed in old schoolbooks, at garage sales, in attics and basements. Brian has arranged these wonderful long-lost tunes for his instruments of choice: autoharp, electric zither, organ and accordion. Fans of Brian's original albums, his art, and his work with They Might Be Giants and the Blue Man Group will treasure the Humanitarium series.


Brian Dewan links