Destroyer (band)
| Destroyer | |
|---|---|
 Destroyer's Dan Bejar performing in 2004 |
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| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Indie , folk , lo-fi |
| Website | Destroyer at merger cords |
| Founding members | |
| Dan Bejar | |
| Current occupation | |
| Dan Bejar | |
| John Collins | |
| David Carswell | |
| Ted Bois | |
| former members | |
| Scott Morgan ( Loscil ) | |
| Steven Wood | |
| Jason Zumpano | |
| Nicholas Bragg | |
| Chris Frey | |
| Fisher Rose | |
| Carey Mercer | |
| Melanie Campbell | |
| Michael Rak | |
| Grayson Walker | |
Destroyer is a Canadian indie - band around the singer Dan Bejar .
history
Destroyer began in the early 1990s as a solo project by independent singer-songwriter Daniel Bejar ( ˈbeɪhɑr ) from Vancouver . He recorded his self-produced debut album We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge in his home studio in Vancouver. At the time of publication, Destroyer is still a pure solo project. No other musicians besides Bejar are listed on We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge . In 1998 City of Daughters was the first Destroyer album to be released with a rhythm section (John Collins on bass and Scott Morgan on drums), which was also the first to be recorded in a professional studio, JC / DC Studios in Vancouver.
In 2000 Destroyer released the album Thief . Thief has been interpreted by many critics as an indictment against the music industry and brought Destroyer a lot of attention.
After the release of Streethawk: A Seduction on Misra Records , Destroyer achieved something of cult status among its fans . After the great success of the album Mass Romantic by the supergroup The New Pornographers , on which Bejar had played a major role, Bejar took an extended break in Spain . During this time most of the songs for the next album This Night were written . After Frog Eyes had already supported him in several appearances as a background band, he brought out Notorious Lightning & Other Works . These are reinterpretations of six tracks from the album Your Blues , where Frog Eyes can also be heard as a background band.
Destroyer's Rubies were later released in 2006 and Trouble in Dreams in 2008. In 2011 the critically acclaimed album Kaputt came out. In 2020 the concept album Have We Met was released , which retrospectively wanted to find "a sound for the approaching new millennium".
style
Bejar calls Destroyer's style "European blues". Bejar's music is often compared to that of David Bowie ; according to their own statements, the band is influenced by Pavement , Guided by Voices and a whole range of other indie bands. Bejar's texts are often described as cryptic by journalists . Bejar borrows text passages quite openly from other artists - or from various sources (eg: Ronald Reagan's " Evil Empire "). Your Blues took Destroyer's style in a new direction after introducing orchestral elements into their music and making extensive use of midi instruments. His album Ken (2017) sounds "like the dark, melodic British indie pop of the late eighties," said Annett Scheffel in the Süddeutsche Zeitung .
Musical collaborations
Over the more than ten years that Bejar performed and recorded under the name Destroyer, there were numerous line-up changes among his fellow musicians. This constant coming and going of band members has sometimes been used as an opportunity to call Destroyer a solo project, even if Bejar insists that he sees Destroyer as a band in which all members contribute their musical qualities equally. Bejar said in interviews that he was never very good at the logistical task of keeping a band together.
Bejar said that as with the recording sessions for Destroyer's Rubies , the current line- up is final and will continue to perform without any further changes. Many of the current members have worked with Bejar and are in large part linked to Destroyer through this, including John Collins and Dave Carswell.
Discography
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| year | title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 1996 | We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge | Tinker |
| 1997 | Ideas for songs | Granted Passage Cassettes |
| 1998 | City of Daughters | Endearing / Triple Crown Audio |
| 2000 | Thief | Catsup Plate / Triple Crown Audio / Cave Canem |
| 2001 | Streethawk: A Seduction | Misra / Talitres |
| 2002 | This night | Merge / Talitres |
| 2004 | Your blues | Merge / Talitres / Acuarela |
| 2005 | Notorious Lightning & Other Works ( EP ) | Merge |
| 2006 | Destroyer's Rubies | Merge |
| 2008 | Trouble in Dreams | Merge / Rough Trade |
| 2009 | Bay of Pigs (EP) | Merge |
| 2011 | Broken | Merge |
| 2015 | Poison Season | Merge |
| 2017 | ken | Merge |
| 2020 | Have We Met | Merge |
swell
- ↑ Dusted Magazine Review of We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge
- ↑ a b Merge Records Homepage of Destroyer ( Memento of the original from April 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ MISRA Records Homepage of Destroyer ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ A pleasant, relaxed approach to the word "fuck" . In: sueddeutsche.de . ISSN 0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on March 8, 2020]).
- ↑ SZ No. 250, 30./31. October 2017, p. 13.
- ↑ Sixeyes Interview
- ↑ Chart sources: DE CH UK US
Web links
- Destroyer at Discogs (English)
- Website at Merge Records