Destroyer - Kaputt (2011)

ive played this album for friends and they immediately love it....which is unusual.

I want him to go full-on Robert Palmer next.

^^^^
something like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1UBS5ZL7Hs

He's somewhat limited without a ton of stage presence and/or charisma, no?

I'd prefer something more in line with his Gap Band cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZyD_b3xSzI&feature=related

I like that one too.

The single version of "Hyperactive" has three fourths of Chic as his backing band.

@Matt DC, I got it after the fact! Quick to post, slow to think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR85bAxCX6M

The most interesting comment posted in response to Christgau's review.

Really, Kaputt is so soupy and indirect I don't think comparisons-sans-qua​lifiers to the songful, emotional culture of definitive 80s British music, bad or good, is anything but identifying the forest before you've really gotten a good look at the trees. First off, Roddy Frame, Paddy McAloon and "Black Man Ray" were all trying to communicate things about actual human emotions, with specifics Bejar never bothers with and emotions he has no interest in. Secondly, all three bore an adherence to short, sharp popforms on their sleeves, which allowed each to make the kind of dent in radio Bejar seems totally disinterested in. I think Bejar himself had it right when he threw out Boys and Girls in his arcane press release -- a loungey aural pillow with no pretense of humanity from a prickly alien fantasy of an aging, wearied glam-rock lothario. And citing Neil Tennant, though feyness is a virtue for both, belies the fact that Neil gets through to everybody with a heart via incisive wit and covert emotion, and Bejar's voice only really hits arch, glammy, renny weirdos. So take it then as Boys and Girls with Al Stewart singing over it, since all Al ever was was Neil's dryer, drabber antecedent.

And though the clamor toward comparisons (I saw the phrase "Kenny G meets the Style Council" -- flatteringly! -- in a typically bad one) makes up the bulk of Kaputt's published praise, that's just because sonic departure (and all Bejar's records sound a little different, which is probably where the Bowie stuff comes from since Streethawk sounds nothing like Ziggy) is the only thing really perking the interests of people who have zero no interest in going gaga over one more Dan Bejar record, and who certainly wouldn't begin to know how to differentiate this one's content from that of the last, much less articulate it. I love him myself, but not because I think he's a genius or even because Destroyer particularly compels me -- it's because his obligation toward concise popform and surface melody in the New Pornographers has yielded a kind of hard-fey model that appeals very much to a kid who grew up idolizing dapper Disney villain sidekicks, 18th century attire and the notion of a heterosexual Joel Grey, and I'm forever searching for that ideal in records whose words are never layered or clever enough to evoke Dylan and whose melodies are never as ebullient as I wish they were. But I've come to love Bejar for merely doing what he does, which is different than what everybody else does, over and over and over despite its inability to fit snugly into any facet of pop's critical model.

So since, again, most criticism I've read about Kaputt so far hinges on how it deliberately sounds like a dream memory of the 80s, and how cool/uncool that is, Christgau in his infinite wisdom is the first person I've seen to craft two lines of any aptitude about the project: "Mix in a smoove groove suitable for deflecting others' disinterest in one's historical anomie and you have intelligent lounge music for 21st-century depressives" and "this is how the pleasure principle feels to an alienated depressive resigned to engaging the world on his own perverse terms". These are the answers all those internet kids were looking for before they decided to just rave out their general observations, and the only common conclusions anybody's likely (much less supposed) to find in Kaputt.

I think that Christgau review is pretty weak, not to mention repetitive. In one short paragraph, he twice uses the phrases: "lacks the heart and chops", "historical anomie" and "depressive". I hear lots of heart and chops, and Bejar doesn't sound very depressed on "Blue Eyes", for instance.

The Dean's least attractive routine, playing armchair shrink, he did the same thing although much harsher with GBV (and their fans!).

GBV deserve nothing less

He did the same thing with Adele too: "I can feel a down-to-earth plus-size who touches women who look a lot more like her than like Beyoncé or Katy Perry" - uh, maybe people like her for other reasons than her figure?

I heard these songs on the radio a lot this year and they didn't do anything for me but suddenly this very moving. if I never liked the new pornographers should I bother w/ any of the rest of his stuff?

suddenly finding this*

yeah, listen to 'rubies'

If the New Pornos sounded like Bejar's pre-Kaputt material I'd never have given this record a chance.

Also try "Your Blues".

What radio are you listening to that plays Destroyer a lot?

college radio

Sigh. I wish Chicago had better college radio options.

i listened to 'destroyers rubies' after getting into 'kaputt' and i loved it. its more like 'heaven is a truck' or 'five years' than the 80's soft rock and sophistipop feel of 'kaputt'.

I think "Your Blues" is the closest thing in his catalogue to this record

nyc has pretty shitty college radio actually, but we listen to the university of washington's station at work via internet

nyc radio so bad it's not even funny

cosign the similarities between your blues and kaputt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl4-PPbnpKg

This was the first Bejar I got into, bought Rubies shortly after and love that just as much.

Anyone into this who hasn't heard the vinyl bonus track "The Laziest River" or, especially, his collaboration with Tim Hecker "Archer on the Beach" really should check it out. I love Kaputt but those two songs took things to another level for me.

his collaboration with Tim Hecker "Archer on the Beach"

Whhhaaaat

Yeah I had NO idea about that either, just googled it!

http://stereogum.com/564282/destroyer-archer-on-the-beach-feat-tim-hecker-stereogum-premiere/mp3s/

the cover art to that and Bay of Pigs are sweet. can imagine having them up on a wall. also: kaputt.

http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2009/08/destroyer-bay_of_pigs.jpg
http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2010/11/Destroyer-Archer-On-The-Beach.jpg
http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2011/01/Destroyer-Kaputt.jpg

His hair is unFerryesque though...

Has anyone heard/loved the live version of "It's Gonna Take an Airplane"--sped up and with a bassline straight out of "All Along the Watchtower"? His show was easily the best I saw in 2011.

Blow Monkeys.

saw him on the rubies tour and "it's gonna take an airplane" was the highlight of a pretty boring set

wish I had checked out a recent show cuz he's more interesting the further he strays from a standard rock band format

seeing Destroyer tonight at Brooklyn Masonic Temple, w/ full band and still doing the Kaputt material I think, should be good

missed them last year at Webster Hall

A buddy said they killed it Sat night in DC.

sweet

I found this J. F*scher Washington City Paper interview with Dan interesting (although I have not read many interviews with him)

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2012/06/15/once-you-break-with-rock-music-its-hard-to-find-your-feet-again-a-chat-with-destroyers-dan-bejar/

This band that I am going on tour with is different from the one that toured last year for Kaputt, and for the first time ever, [we're] kind of consciously trying to learn a bunch of back-catalog stuff in addition to stuff from the new record. We probably know twice as many songs as any Destroyer formation has ever learned. And doing that, it’s interesting to see how the older songs knock up against the new ones. They’re a fair bit different, but I guess I see it outside of thematics. It’s really noticeable in the sense of space on the Kaputt songs, in, like, an effort to flatten out as many chord changes as possible. There’s a vocal delivery required in the older songs that seems divorced from the way I was singing on the Kaputt record.

...

I don’t know what I’m cast off into from Kaputt, but it seems to be a kind of void or something. Once you break with rock music, the kind of music I listened to for so long, it’s hard to find your feet again. [Laughs] I don’t know, I’m really enjoying playing with the group, more than I ever have, but at the same time I feel more distant from rock music, or even pop music, more than I ever have. It’s weird. Maybe Kaputt was like the kiss-off.

yeah, that show in dc was tremendous - great versions of "suicide demo," "bay of pigs" as the encore, etc. i dunno if i'd describe the way they perform as emotionally detached, exactly, but it isn't far off - it was kind of interesting to watch them play the older, more self-consciously clever stuff ("english music," notably) with that kind of demeanor

yeah I'm curious to hear what non-Kaputt stuff they'll play and how it will come off

Could be wrong but I'm pretty sure he played a new song at the dc show. Third song in the set with a "be my baby" beat? Anyone recognize this?

saw them a couple weeks back in portland. just an amazing show. was blown away most by "rubies" as the closer iirc.

is 'english music' really more 'self-consciously clever' than anything on kaputt?? what a weird notion

yes it is

"write your english music, run free" is as self-consciously clever as good music gets

european blues

This band that I am going on tour with is different from the one that toured last year for Kaputt,

Interesting, because the press release line, via Merge and others, is that this is the Kaputt band. Who is different?

how was the sound at brooklyn masonic? the shows i've seen there have sounded pretty poor.

i don't really understand what separates 'english music' from 'song for america'. i feel like if anything kaputt is more self-conscious. or at least more difficult to parse or reduce, which seems 'cleverer' to me.