Destroyer - Kaputt (2011)

I LOVE THIS ALBUM.

how is it a touchpoint? Genuinely curious -- no snark.

'similar production style'

b/c Ferry was more direct vocally and chordally on Avalon than he ever was and would be again.

& instrumentation, & the general svelte aesthetic

lol those sound nothing alike

that's my point now can we move on

Man, if only Bejar had asked Ferry to play synths on Kaputt...

that's kinda what I don't like about it! Steely Dan had HOOKS

this album has mad hooks, sometimes more than one in a song!

OMGZ the LinnDrum on side 3!!

so i picked up a shift last night at my bar on "college tuesday"...put this on and got surprising reactions. Lots of "who's this?" and to top it off Song for America actually had people dancing and sexy girl dancing. Although there were a few odd looks during the whole animals...deaths embrace thing. Meanwhile I was doing lots of pelvic thrusts behind the bar. Im sure this is exactly what Bejar was going for.

i don't hear steely dan in this at all really, there's more elements of like...fleetwood mac or something than the dan even

it reminds me of Gerry Rafferty

Picked this up yesterday and was listening on the way to work this morning. Definitely not seeing the Dan touchpoints. Actually, the first comparison I thought of was Spandau Ballet, which Dan gets a little tetchy about in his interview here. But on first listen, there's a lot to love here -- it seems to me that he never approaches these aesthetics, either here or on the Bowie-compared records, ironically or as pastiche. It's just a production/arranging choice, one of many he could make.

"Suicide Demo" is amazing.

Also, by weird coincidence, "Babylon Sisters" just popped up on my iPod.

He should really get a haircut.

I'm reading all of these 70s band references and getting annoyed. Please, no more smarmy 70s rip offs! Then I realize I'm in a Destroyer thread and I am probably going to buy this!

bay of pigs makes a lot more sense in context with the extra music on side3. half of this album is kosmische!!!

listened to this album again this morning, it's really good but it's kind of intense to listen to the whole thing at once

i know there are cheesy signifiers like the sax and some of the guitar licks but for me it's all about the drums+bass, synthesizer washes, and vocals, none of which particularly signify cheesiness or "the 70s" (aside from the disco-y rhythms)

also as someone who hadn't heard bay of pigs at all before this album, it fits in well with the rest of the songs. i wouldn't recognize it as a "separate entity" if i didn't know it has been released earlier

"blue eyes" is still the standout track for me but i generally have poppier tastes

i get that people would call some of the sounds here "cheesy", but mainly this record is really beautiful. also, the guy is singing better than ever here -- his phrasing is really about as good as it gets.

i get that people would call some of the sounds here "cheesy", but mainly this record is really beautiful

/!\ OTM /!\

fuck yea

word

also n/a i am totally the opposite: this is the first album in a while that i feel compelled to listen to str8 thru every time (though now i've got it on vinyl i'm generally skipping sides 3/4)

yeah, i want to listen to the whole thing -- it sounds like one long song, really. in a good way.

can't really get over how much better the vinyl sounds, too---dunno if that's just me wanting it to be the case, a general truth of 160kbps v. vinyl, or attributable to the production, or what.

i need to get me something to play vinyl on.

really want to get that but cant find anywhere in the uk that has it :(

don't think i'm gonna get the vinyl -- is the long ambient track available anywhere else? [/ysi?]

Also I love how well Sibel Thrasher's voice both contrasts with and blends with Dan's, and how she adopt his rather idiosyncratic phrasing and vowels.

As far as "sounds like 80s production" stuff goes, this >>>>>>>>M83.

the only steely dan comparison i would make is the juxtaposition of the really mellow, studio pro lite rock chops with the sorta odd, malevolent lyrics.

sonically songwritingwise, i don't really hear any steely dan

also, he pretty much lets you know that this is an anglophile post new wave patiche thing in the lyrics severeal times, so yeah prefab, jazz butcher, talk talk, blue aeroplanes, all that shit seems way more appropriate

tylerw: the vinyl came with a digital DL of the album that includes the ambient track. i am merely bringing that to your attention.

Yeah, the bass lines are gorgeous.

Sorry if this was already discussed:

Does the vinyl include a digital download?

it was discussed 2 posts ago!

oh, duh

gbx is the digital download FLAC or mp3?

mp3

320kbps

Curious if the sax in Nick Drake's "Chime of a City Clock" coded as "cheesy" in 1971:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP3eHMWFEkM

(I would guess not.)

i dunno, but listening to this album and gerry rafferty recently, i have started wondering about how the sax became kinda the code sound for cheese.

relevant thread:

why was the saxophone (and especially the sax solo) so ubiquitous in '80's pop/rock?

i was always bummed no one wanted to let me play sax in bands :(

i'm a sax player btw

I've always liked this interview with Jim O'Rourke about the cultural associations and contexts of certain musical sounds, as they pertain to his record Eureka:

O'Rourke: ...there are certain songs on the record that mix genres to draw attention to the fact that they are just signifiers of genre. Like Ken Vandermark’s sax solo on "Through the Night Softly." If you take that out of context, you’re going to be wondering, "What is that?"

Q: It’s funny you mentioned that, because that’s the moment I’m leading up to. When I hear that solo it sounds like the ending credits on "Saturday Night Live."

O’Rourke: (Ecstatic) Exactly! That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. That’s brilliant. Fantastic. That’s 100 percent what I was going for. I remember recording it and saying "No, Ken, stupider ... stupider." He kept saying, "Aw Jim, come on." But what most people have heard is Pink Floyd’s "The Great Gig in the Sky" from Dark Side of the Moon, which I can understand because the drumming was purposefully supposed to sound like Nick Mason. That’s why I used a different drummer on that song. But it is supposed to feel like "Saturday Night Live." That interests me partially because it’s a cultural reference taken out of its context but also because it’s just stupid. I like stupid stuff. I have to admit it’s also slightly a parody of a Gastr del Sol song for me. The cliched poignant piano on that song is just ridiculous. What is so poignant about a piano humping out a bunch of chords, you know? So that tune is mostly made up of jokes. But it had to work musically of course.

Sax is sometimes seen as cool in dance-punk contexts -- beginning with James Chance, probably, but then recently with the Rapture and Love Is All. But it's a different style of playing.

well sure. also i think that the main reason that sax/horns don't crop up that often and/or get relegated to specific roles is because they're pretty inflexible, tonally. not in an absolute sense, of course, but every instrument in a trad rock trio/4tet can be run through a crazy signal chain to get whatever quality you want. horns are what they are, for the most part, unless you do some morphine stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTclndT4Ilk

Song for America actually had people dancing and sexy girl dancing.

awesome! i mentioned upthread that i opened a dj set a few weeks ago with "chinatown" but have been thinking "song for america" would be a great end of the party/ its 5am and we're still dancing song

thought i might be sick of this album already but i just checked and nope i'm not

my wife, my 17-month-old daughter and I were all dancing to this record in the kitchen last night

awesome!! fuck i wish i had a family to dance with sometimes

lol otm sigh