It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Destroyer. When I was thinking of names for this blog, it came down to lyrics from either a Destroyer song (there are about 10 great blog names in The Bad Arts alone - "Horizontal Myth", "Feel Medium", "Twin Prizes Waiting For The Sun", "Another Word For Sacrament", "Taking Notes For A Crooked Underground", etc.) or a Guided By Voices song (which ultimately won out). But I have to admit, I was completely taken aback when I first heard Chinatown, the first song released from Kaputt, back in January. The saxophone is, without question, my least favorite horn instrument. And here was this song, with saxophone spilling from its ears.
It wasn't until the third or fourth listen (and then hearing the next single, Kaputt) that I started to see what Dan Bejar was doing: creating an album within a very specific construct that had been relegated to music that people generally had previously despised. This is an album that looks terrible on paper but somehow sounds like a masterpiece in reality. I like what my friend Nathan had to say about the album earlier this year:
"I have been rocking this album when I walk around on my bustle. I stay super cool and relaxed in an amazing pre-apocalyptic space disco world. Such a good time."
"I have been rocking this album when I walk around on my bustle. I stay super cool and relaxed in an amazing pre-apocalyptic space disco world. Such a good time."
That pretty much nails it for me. It's so much fun to listen to this album, really listen to it, immerse yourself in it, get lost in it, and do so while strolling amongst all the other people who aren't in that same mind-space. This is a record that affects your whole constitution, if you let it.
...and yet it's not my #1 album of the year...
I leave you with a great snippet from a Bejar interview on Aquarium Drunkard:
AD: Goals change during the course of an artistic career, so where do you see yourself in five to ten years? How have your motives and ideas about your art changed from the earlier days to now?
DB: I don’t understand the world of goals. Goals is a numbers game. I never had a goal, let alone goals, when I started making records. And now I have even less. I am at peace with way more things, which is standard operating procedure for aging. And way more confused and terrified by the world, and even more at peace with that than with the other stuff. I am grounded by things outside the world of artmaking, not true 10 years ago. I am less polemic, more thoughtless. More like a windchime these days. I’m not sure I’m suited to what it is that I am doing, I guess that hasn’t changed…
I leave you with a great snippet from a Bejar interview on Aquarium Drunkard:
AD: Goals change during the course of an artistic career, so where do you see yourself in five to ten years? How have your motives and ideas about your art changed from the earlier days to now?
DB: I don’t understand the world of goals. Goals is a numbers game. I never had a goal, let alone goals, when I started making records. And now I have even less. I am at peace with way more things, which is standard operating procedure for aging. And way more confused and terrified by the world, and even more at peace with that than with the other stuff. I am grounded by things outside the world of artmaking, not true 10 years ago. I am less polemic, more thoughtless. More like a windchime these days. I’m not sure I’m suited to what it is that I am doing, I guess that hasn’t changed…
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