Dan Bejar and Destroyer: Still Following the Thread

There are those albums that in some fundamental way evoke a feeling, tone, or existential space with which I’m inarticulately familiar—it’s those albums to which I keep returning year after year. They’re like fingers pointing at the moon, to reference the Buddhist maxim. Destroyer’s 2006 Rubies is such a release; it’s been almost a decade since it came out, and each time I listen to it, I’m still freshly inspired, flooded with creative possibilities.

In Trouble in Dreams, the 2008 follow-up to Rubies, Dan Bejar (the creative force behind Destroyer) further mined his hip-literate, post-folk explorations of melody and oblique lyricism. Musical landscapes ranged from sparse textures to heavier and distorted backgrounds and included occasional forays into more mainstream rock territories. The tercet below from “Foam Hands” and the way in which it’s sung strikes me as a stellar example of Bejar’s writing approach and vocal styling: protracted and breathy delivery of the first two lines, suspiciously earnest and accessible, followed by the third line, delivered at a faster pace and more typically cryptic or Rorschach—perhaps, just perhaps, tinged with cynicism. In this way, Bejar’s lines both build upon and deconstruct each other; i.e., it’s difficult to find a fixed position, psychologically or thematically, in what Bejar writes:

True love regrets to inform you,
there are certain things you must do
to perceive his face in the stains on the wall.

Bejar’s primary lyrical sources are probably poets such as Rimbaud, the Dadaists, and the French surrealists (Breton, et al), as well as the New York School of Poetry, more so than the obvious songwriters: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, or Joni Mitchell. The highly visual, even synesthetic, nature of his lyricism also suggests his absorption of work by such painters as Magritte and Miro (Bejar alludes to painting and painters in a number of songs). The lines below from “Shooting Rockets (From the Desk of Night’s Ape)” conjure for me Picasso’s “Guernica,” the background textures apocalyptic and anxiety-inducing, reminiscent of a soundtrack from a film set in post-WWII Germany (the recently released Phoenix comes to mind):

It’s a terrible feast we’ve been stuffing our faces on,
a terrible breeze from the east coming on,
bearing the scent of our one hundred first kills.

To my ears, Kaputt, released in 2011, stands as the culmination of approaches explored in the previous two CDs. With Kaputt, Bejar revels in a synthesis of jazz influences, dream pop, Euro-avant garde, and automatic writing. The album reflects Bejar’s maturation as songwriter, verbal collagist, and producer. Several reviewers have referenced a line from the second track, “Blue Eyes”: “I write poetry for myself.” Indeed the line stands out as a possible ars poetica; however, in my view, is most notable for its, in all likelihood, unintentional irony: Kaputt, while textured, ambitious, and far-ranging, is one of Bejar’s most accessible statements (his work with The New Pornographers aside), an album in which he seems particularly conscious of forging a connection with his listener (this might explain how/why the album successfully expanded his audience base). Track after track land with impact, due in part to Bejar’s ability to balance the esoteric with the accessible, to counter the abstract with the concrete.

In “The Way It Is,”[1] William Stafford writes, “There’s a thread you follow.” With Destroyer’s latest, the recently released Poison Season, Dan Bejar continues to follow his own thread, true to Stafford’s message. Poison Season is a compelling album, lyrically and musically, is perhaps Destroyer’s best-mixed project, and frequently struck me as sounding much like a coda to Kaputt. If Kaputt is the long night, Poison Season is the day after, albeit an overcast day, as this album certainly contains its share of melancholy moments and palpable disillusionment.

The opening song, “Times Square, Poison Season I,” invokes a pensive mood with its orchestral layering and Bejar’s introspective vocal. The second song, “Dream Lover,” is an atypical jaunt for Bejar into his version of heartland rock, reminiscent, as others have pointed out, of Springsteen and particularly the E Street Band. With the third track, “Forces from Above,” Bejar combines rhythmic subtleties with orchestrated elements, an exquisitely sparse and haunting background highlighting his lyric:

Forces from above denied you the right to be free in your own way.
Forces from above love the camps of the world.
Forces from above denied you the right to be free in your own way.
Forces from above, wish you were here, we think the world of you.

And later:

I tried to follow the lines to the letter.
On her deathbed, she said, “I hope you get better.”
Oh, forces from above.
I climbed high the cathedral steps, it was getting on,
the evening progresses like a song into the heavens.

The horn on “Hell Is an Open Door” is less John Coltrane (as it might have been on Trouble in Dreams or Kaputt) and more Pete Christlieb from Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues.” Bejar sings his own “Dejection: An Ode,”[2] reducing high Romanticism to post-millennial ennui.

Baby, it’s dumb.
Look what I’ve become,
scum,
a relic,
a satellite.

“Times Square” is one of the CD’s melodic highs, Bejar’s voice as engaging as ever, the straightforward folk-rock tempo and arrangement supporting his pop melody and more-tongue-in-cheek-than-wryly-avant-garde refrain (borrowed from the opening track):

Jesus is beside himself.
Jacob’s in a state of decimation.
The writing on the wall wasn’t writing at all,
just forces of nature in love with a weather station.

And later:

Judy’s beside herself.
Jack’s in a state of desolation.
The writing on the wall wasn’t writing at all,
just forces of nature in love with a radio station.

If “Times Square” is a high point for its relative simplicity and melodic immediacy, the next track, “Archer on the Beach,” stands out for its textural complexity, the song from this project most reminiscent of Kaputt. To a dreamscape of percussion, synths, and horn, Bejar croons his surreal lyric,

Careful now, watch your step, in you go.
The Ash King’s made of ashes, the Ice Queen’s made of snow.
And Archer’s where you left him, with his arrows stuck inside a peach,
awake on your crutches in the moonlight, Archer on the beach.

The piano on “Bangkok” is especially striking, minimal but lushly accompanied by sustained string sounds. Bejar sings like an elder statesman,

Like you, I’ve been around the world, seen a million girls.
I’ve seen Bangkok, I’ve seen Bangkok.
Black, blue, red, wise, evil, very nice,
very nice.

And the repeated lyric at the end (which also appears on the back of the CD):

So bring out your dead, bring out the light,
bring out your dark birds in flight.
Bring out your red roses too.
Hey, what’s got into Sunny?

With Poison Season, Dan Bejar has crafted a mostly sober, occasionally rollicking, and frequently self-deprecating set of tracks that adds to his already expansive oeuvre. Bejar is clearly still curious, still seeking new ground and plateaus, harvesting the quirky and heartfelt observations and experiences that go along with a life spent in the arts—hell, that go along with being alive.