Destroyer - Kaputt (2011)

I just bought two tickets for the Webster Hall show. Better be better than the one I saw a few years ago!

can someone explain "MIDI record"

if this is in reference to Your Blues, that record's instrumentation consists solely of acoustic guitar and transparently fake-sounding instrument samples that sound like they're MIDI-sequenced

example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTo8fjGUgs4

"It's not a war/til someone loses an eye"

Yeah, I kind of get where people are coming from with the whole MIDI thing, but realistically, most current music that has electronic elements also have MIDI sequencing. It's a pretty standard thing and doesn't necessarily have a particular sound associated with it.

Well, yes and no. When one says "It's his MIDI record" they're actually referring to a late 80s / early 90s set of sounds called General MIDI. It was not a sound in itself but rather a set of 127 instruments that would be represented across the board from bargain basement Panasonic digital pianos to the "top of the line" Kurzweil varieties. Consistently 001 would be "Piano", 020 was "Strings", 049 was "Harp", 090 was "Warm Pad", etc. (I am recalling those numbers from fifteen-year-old memory, they are possibly incorrect.)

The General MIDI sound, though not applicable to a single synth, usually describes a sound that could be described as a latter-day version of the Fairlight. You'll hear fake trumpets, fake strings, timpani, etc. It's the sound you hear on karaoke backing tracks, panflute buskers, mattress commercials.

yea i figured as much. though i'd probably call that his .MID album
when i think "MIDI album" i think yamaha DX7, tango in the night, early digital recording/production, kaputt

i need max on this thread

― gr8080, Sunday, January 9, 2011 6:23 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

omggggggggggggggggggggg this album why does no one tell me about these things

welcome

would be fun to feed your_blues_midi_files.zip thru gxscc for some trashy 8bit goodness

im curious why terius can use the linndrum on yamaha, sound a whole lot like prince and is awesome but this record is being scoffed at for sounding vaguely reminiscent of steely dan? seems kinda silly. oh well, haters are missing out bigtime

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

― tylerw, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 2:33 PM

aw!

ha i was watching the baby last night while my wife was out and the baby was getting kind of crazy and overstimulated so i put on this album and was carrying her around and she fell asleep on me, which she never, ever does. so i guess babies are down with destroyer.

Every time I listen different lyrics pop out, like "I haven't seen you ages/I still fly into rages at the mention of your name...Christine."

Phantom of the Opera ref, IMO.

Ha, OK, I don't remember reading this:

oh man starting at abt 5:00 of "bay of pigs" pretty much is everything i love about this dude in a nutshell

havent seen you for ages
still fly into rages
at the mention of your name...christiiiiine

― tickle me delmar (k3vin k.), Saturday, September 12, 2009 3:18 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^sounds like a beautiful postmodern take on "phantom of the opera"

― tickle me delmar (k3vin k.), Saturday, September 12, 2009 3:24 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i have no idea what you're talking about

heard this album is going to knock the decemberists out of the #1 position on the billboard charts.

Just in case lack of a legal way to hear this for free is holding anyone back, the whole album is streaming on soundcloud:

http://soundcloud.com/hypem/sets/kaputt/s-I2Ja2

Every time I listen different lyrics pop out, like "I haven't seen you ages/I still fly into rages at the mention of your name...Christine."

Phantom of the Opera ref, IMO.

― Tyler/Perry's "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" (jaymc), Thursday, January 27, 2011 7:11 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

More an intertextual reference to "Painter in Your Pocket," but sure.

xxp i had to load up billboard.com to make sure you weren't clowning and that the decemberists actually have a #1 album

wtf

Yeah, with a whopping 94,000 records sold. Social Distortion got to number three, with something like 50,000. Those numbers aren't shabby for indies, but I bet it feels like coasting in on a technicality, especially with Taylor Swift still selling millions her first couple weeks.

xxp i had to load up billboard.com to make sure you weren't clowning and that the decemberists actually have a #1 album

wtf

― ciderpress, Thursday, January 27, 2011 2:41 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

They only sold that many because Amazon was offering it for like 3.99.

haaa, was just kidding. heard this record is going to get a 10.0 from p4k though for real.

kaputt 10th anniversary blu-ray tetraphonic audio remaster w/ 20 minutes of bonus kosmische will be a definite 10.0

Just in case lack of a legal way to hear this for free is holding anyone back, the whole album is streaming on soundcloud:

http://soundcloud.com/hypem/sets/kaputt/s-I2Ja2

― gr8080, Thursday, 27 January 2011 17:01 (5 hours ago)

no "the laziest river" ;_;

ok so just now hearing "the laziest river" and wow! it's no instrumental but wow!

I like this album a lot. I can understand how people could hear Steely Dan in this, but I think this has more of an early-80s sequencer vibe - so I'd say a closer reference point would be Donald Fagen's solo joint The Nightfly or Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out", or Pet Shop Boys, or Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man, or Ian Dury - or basically any mid-80s record that featured a guy with an un-commercial sounding voice singing highbrow lyrics over sequencer-driven, dance-inspired music.

So I just bought the vinyl version and downloaded the digital copy and I'm wondering how they relate to each other. Are they exactly the same? Does the epic mp3 for The Laziest River contain the entirety of side 3?

y

the world is just bones

the world is black stones

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20458872,00.html

Read through to the "yacht rock" reference. Should generate a comment or two...

(By the way, I like Bejar's shirts. Anyone know where I can get similar ones?)

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20459529_20901309,00.html

Sorry. For the shirt question above...

I like this. Reminds me a bit of our dear (ilx-)departed Momus.

Completely under this album's spell.

It's sending me off to a far away place in my mind. And in such a velvet-y smooth way too. No 'blast from the past' but a soft tumbling back through the years. Ah nostalgia... It's not melancholy, rather the French spleen. In a highly enjoyable way. Am hearing most of the names O. Nate checked too, but luckily it doesn't get in the way.

Expect to be playing this one for quite a while.

The thing that strikes me about this album is that, despite a few elements that reference 70s/80s music, this sounds totally modern to me. It really doesn't strike me as particularly retro at all. The production and sound quality is really top notch.

It is also kind of interesting that the vocals and lyrics kind of seem to take a back seat somewhat, at least compared to some of his other albums where the focus is totally on his singing.

kinda, sorta.... ugh, I need an editor.

otm, i hear traces of this sound in many contemporary artists: emeralds + arp for the synthy kosmische stuff, efdemin + isolee's new ones for the FM style synths and clear production, cut copy with their tango in the night sound on that one song, italians do it better have been pilfering that disco sound forever, etc

it seems like because destroyer is one of the first /indie rock proper/ releases to take inspiration from these sounds, its being unfairly compared to 60-odd years of rock canon

Ha, Spencer, I was thinking the same thing - definitely reminds me of some of the lusher stuff from say Tender Pervert. But yeah my wife said it reminded her of Pet Shop Boys vocally, too. Largely enjoying it in a different way than I enjoy either of those aformentioned artists, mind you.

at the start of his career many journalists compared Al Stewart and Neil Tennant's voices.

My wife mentioned this reminded her of James. Definitely the vocals have a similar timbre, although Dan Bejar is much less strident in his delivery.

^ That is interesting!
I am fascinated by Tim Booth's idea of 'lyrics' and def see the parallels.

i kinda hated the earlier destroyer stuff i'd heard but this one is great.

I had a Destroyer listening binge yesterday, and although I'm probably wrong, this is his first album that doesn't reference his own work or works of other artists lyrically much, or at all, right? Contrast that with Destroyer's Rubies, which is full of references to his own back catalog as well as quite a few others.

just got the vinyl, and lp 2 is really noisy--crackles all over.

: (

anyone else?

I actively dislike Destroyer but this is the first "indie rock" album I've heard in a long while that has fascinated me so much. Pretty fantastic. What do long-time fans think of this? I think it has crossover appeal, in the sense of crossing over to people who never bothered with Destroyer in the first place.

xp same

Compared to his other records, there are less jokes and more instrumental breaks

just got the vinyl, and lp 2 is really noisy--crackles all over.

why I stopped buying new vinyl...

Yeah, I've had some bad experiences with new vinyl too.

I had a weird dream last night about being on some really luxuious yacht circa 1982 while songs from this played in the background. Then the owner of the yacht flew into a coke-fueled rage and started destroying the wood panelling while the line "threw his watercolors into the ocean" from Rubies looped over and over. Maybe I need to lay off this album for awhile?

nah, stick with it, I wanna see where this is going