Song, by Toad

I didn’t have much to say about the last Destroyer album, because it just didn’t really grab me, unfortunately.  Hearing this it seems almost like the reason for that was simply that Dan Bejar might not have been pushing it enough for my taste, because it was a very restrained and, in my view, unremarkable record.

This, on the other hand, whilst barely even an EP, is much more interesting.  It’s long, rather abstract, stitches what sound like fragments of songs together into a single quarter of an hour-long song, and is in general really quite weird and very, very good.

I still don’t entirely find myself understanding the pairing of the two songs, although perhaps the length of them is responsible for that, in that they both feel rather like sovereign entities, not necessarily requiring the other in order to be complete.  Bay of Pigs itself is presumably about the bungled US invasion of Cuba which very nearly triggered nuclear war back in the sixites, although I’ll confess that the narrative of the song itself rather escapes me.

Anyhow, the song accelerates in vignettes, ratcheting itself up from the twinkling dreamscapes of the first few minutes, into some sort of somnabulent disco and finally a sharply-strummed crest around eleven minutes in.  There it stops and seems to tumble downwards into the abyss of experimentalism again, with a building electronic rumble which allows the song to drift away back into the electronic twinkly with which it started.  It’s a strange shift, at the end there, but it’s nice and it gives the song that completeness I hinted at earlier.

It hints at other Destroyer songs as well, interweaving the odd snippet here and there, and the second song, Ravers, is a re-working of one of their past tunes as well, previously called Rivers, I think.

So yes, it’s an odd release, this.  A two-song EP clocking in at about twenty minutes in length and which really does bugger about something chronic.  If Bejar is this good when he’s being weird I’d be tempted to say that he should throw off the reigns more often, stop being so disciplined, and just go for it, because I like this notably more than a lot of his more sensible, three-minute pop song-based work.

Erm, no preview song with this I’m afraid, because there are only two songs on the album.

MySpace | More mp3s | Buy (digital) direct from Merge Records

If you already like Destroyer, then this probably won’t change your mind.  If, like me, you’re a little bit ambivalent, then I think you can safely let this pass you by without the fear of missing out on anything momentous.

Without shouting and preening, Dan Bejar has quite a portentious delivery.  Not in a grandiose and annoying way, more in the sense that he uses pauses with dramatic effect and sings in quite a theatrical manner, albeit in a low-key sort of fashion.  Unfortunately the actual music, which tends to lurch in time to his vocals, doesn’t bring much to this record.

Since the gorgeous European Oils I’ve been trying to kid myself that I like Destroyer more than I do, but ultimately I just don’t think the tunes really seem to have a solid core to base themselves upon.  They don’t seem to have bits where I would normally expect bits, for some reason, and I am not sure how to explain that properly.  I find myself waiting for the song to start, for the bit that makes it come together as a single entity, to kick in so that I can get a handle on it, but it never does.

That said, Destroyer was started as an opportunity for Dan Behar to experiment with music, away from the confines of his day job with the New Pornographers, so it’s understandable that it’s less obviously accessible.  And I’d far rather he was experimenting than just trotting out verse-bridge-chorus pop songs.

I can see why people like Destroyer’s stuff, because many of the elements of music I love are there, but nevertheless I am not really a fan.  Almost, but not quite.

Destroyer – Blue Flowers/Blue Flame
Destroyer – Introducing Angels

website | hype | buy from merge records

Well you know how I said I wasn’t so convinced by Toadcast #17?  Well it proved somewhat prophetic, although that prophesy may have been somewhat self-fulfilling of course.  It’s one of my least downloaded podcasts for ages, but this one should sort that out.  There’s some genuinely excellent music on here, although most of it is pretty obscure.  There’s no Arcade Fire or anything to pull in the punters, bar a bit of The Magnetic Fields, but a really good selection of new and emerging music nevertheless.

And why the Homecast?  Well that’s obvious of course: we’re back in our house at long last and I recorded this from my massive old lab bench that doubles as a desk and music centre all at once.  It’s fucking brilliant – I really should take a picture and post it for you so you can see.  The bench is 2.75m long, so I have computer and stuff at one end, stereo equipment at the other and a couple of good sized speakers either side. A music anorak’s paradise!

Toadcast #18 – The Homecast

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01. Aidan John Moffat – Eureka Springs (Edit) (00.00)
02. 4 or 5 Magicians – Forever on the Edge (02.30)
03. Flashguns – St. George (07.53)
04. George Pringle – Carte Postale (13.52)
05. Dusty Springfield – You Don’t Own Me (16.59)
06. Destroyer – Foam Hands (21.55)
07. Howlies – Aluminum Baseball Bat (28.44)
08. The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir – Aspidestra (38.36)
09. Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit – Leftovers (40.48)
10. Ruth Theodore – Overexpanding (49.22)
11. Akron/Family – Ed is a Portal (55.28)
12. Victor Borge – Phonetic Puncutation (63.22)
13. Josiah Wordsworth – Drive-by Media (70.23)
14. King of Prussia – Spain in the Summertime (74.44)
15. The Magnetic Fields – Threeway (83.07)
16. The Forms – Knowledge in Hand (87.44)
17. Howlies – Smoke (90.14)
18. The Beat – Mirror in the Bathroom (95.38)
19. Found – When You Fall (102.09)