Destroyer – Kaputt
As the music industry redefines itself as a business, one increasingly influenced by new technologies and attitudes, so too do selected artists. No one represents this new order better than Dan Bejar. In the past a resume that includes membership in one successful band (in this case Bejar’s participation in New Pornographers) would have been more than enough. No so for this hyper creative Canadian.
The 2000 Destroyer album Thief has already stated his disdain for the traditional record biz but his musical endeavours are anything but an exercise in negativity. There is a generosity in approach that is inspiring. Bejar’s work under the Destroyer moniker has always been filled with rich melodies and instrumentation and Kaputt excels in those categories as well.
The album plays out like a proper record and defies once again a recent tendency for a lot of works to sound like just a collection of single songs. Bejar is also unafraid to indulge his sense of melodrama and theatre and there are a number of moments when the instrumentation drops out and he uses just a lone voice to put the ideas across. These singular moments are often followed by clever and unique arrays of instruments that demonstrate further creative flair.
All this talk of the redefinition of craft would be meaningless if it weren’t for the actual joy in the listening experience for Kaputt is one of those rare example of the musical sum being much stronger that the individual parts. Rob Hudson www.mergerecords.com
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