Since releasing his first EP in 2007, Rich Aucoin has made it his life’s work to transform our fear into fun, anxiety into ecstasy, panic into pleasure. A mad DayGlo-pop scientist in the tradition of Brian Wilson, Wayne Coyne, and Dan Snaith, Rich is the sort of artist who has no time for half measures, utilizing all the resources and connections at his disposal to ensure his every gesture is a Major Event.

To wit, his first proper album, 2011’s W e’re All Dying to Live, was a 22-track orchestro-rock magnum opus that, once you factor in the numerous choirs on hand, featured over 5 00 collaborators. But making music is only half the story with Rich—each of his releases to date have been constructed in tandem with companion films made up of classic movies and public-domain footage that are meticulously edited by Rich himself to sync up perfectly with his songs. And those visuals form the backdrop to a now-legendary live spectacle that is less a rock concert than a secular big-tent revival, uniting congregations under giant rainbow parachutes and thunderclouds of confetti.

At any given Rich Aucoin gig, there’s only one person in the room whose face isn’t frozen in a perma-smile: the poor bastard on staff who’ll eventually have to clean up a post-show scene that resembles a bombed-out party-favor store.

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