Dan Deacon.
Photo: Break Thru Radio.

Guess who’s joining pop star and sometimes-artist Miley Cyrus on her upcoming tour, beginning next month? Baltimore-based rock musician and electronic composer Dan Deacon will bring coveted indie cred to the “Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz” tour, which will also feature Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne.

Deacon will open for Miley’s performances in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, DC. He’ll also play several solo sets along the way. See a full itinerary here.

Deacon has released eight albums on several different labels since 2003, in styles ranging from electro-pop to contemporary classical. He has performed everywhere from alternative art spaces to Carnegie Hall, and has previously toured with the bands Deerhunter and No Age. According to a Pitchfork video, he typically tours in a “vantastic” school bus that runs on vegetable oil, though the accommodations on this tour will presumably be a bit more plush.

Miley Cyrus at the opening of her exhibition, “Dirty Hippie.”
Photo: Via Miley Cyrus/Instagram.

“I felt like I was in the Phantom Tollbooth when the offer to open the Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz tour came in, but I have a pretty weird life and tend to end up in really bizarre situations that I never in a million years would have pictured,” Deacon told Pitchfork. “I think it’s safe to say without any doubt that the experience of touring with Miley and the Flaming Lips will be one of the most reality-curving events of my career thus far.”

Cyrus’ latest release, Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz, released in August and with a cover that looks suspiciously like the work of Marilyn Minter, has met with mixed reviews, but most critics agree that it’s her most experimental and edgy album thus far.

“[S]he no longer answers to anything but her own impulses,” Consequence of Sound wrote. “If the world’s still looking—and Cyrus made sure they were looking—why not give them something to look at? Dead Petz succeeds as a spectacle, even if it collapses under the weight of its own irreverence.”

No word on whether there’s any chance of a Jeffrey Deitch-sponsored Cyrus and Deacon performance at this year’s Art Basel in Miami Beach, but it’s probably unlikely lightning will strike twice.