The Decatur Fist is an experimental aleatoric sound and music project created by Dean Haddock.
It was nurtured in Texas, cultivated in New York, contemplated in California, and is now homed in Florida. The Decatur Fist was founded in 2000 and continues today.
Together with a handful of collaborators the Decatur Fist is experiential, improvisational composition carried out in a methodical and structured manner that gives way to multi-layered melodies, and simple, spacial harmonies. It is completely planned; yet completely spontaneous–a collection of opposites.
Although lyrics are sparse in the Decatur Fist universe, they are intentional and as rich as the melodies. Almost always dualistic in meaning, songs typically reflect the artist’s obsession with light and the occult, exploring themes of friendship, love, war, life and death through the blurry lenses of esoteric philosophy and history.
The purpose of the Decatur Fist is simple: to remind the listener of how to recognize the subconscious–the part of the tree that grows underground–and to remind him or her of the duality inherent in human life. The emphasis is most often on the present moment, although some pieces explore the more physical topics of astronomy and time. Every breath of word and every musical phrase is nostalgia created in the Now. Finding no meaning in the work is also completely correct.
The Decatur Fist includes the contributions of Hans Hendley aka Semantic Noise, Beth Henry, Brian Harkin, Will Stark, Lee Walker, Patrick Turk, Bradly Brown, Teresa Tsai, Lucas Span aka Cobra aka Marion Cobretti and Kevin Simon aka Fiasco. All thanks and appreciation are due to them.