Customer Reviews

Bay Of Pigs [Vinyl]

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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I have been a fan of Destroyer for several years now. I have bought and enjoyed nearly all of his later works. I initially got into New Pornographers because Daniel Bejar was a participant--now of course I love A.C. Newman and Neko Case as well.

The title cut on this "single" may be the most interesting thing Destroyer has ever done. The fusing of Bejar's Bowie-like dramatic singing with dance rhythms and ambient sounds on a lengthy suite-like piece seems so natural and fitting as to be inevitable.

If you like Destroyer, you owe it to yourself to track this down. We can only hope that Merge will release this in some other form (maybe part of an album?).

This song is being played at my wedding, during the conception of my first-born*, during the birth of my first-born*, during my slow and agonizing death*, and finally buried with me upon departure from this planet. Hence the vinyl; MP3s don't decompose well...

[ * = if applicable ]

Dan Bejar is an underrated musical genius. He effortlessly writes witty and sometimes sardonic and humorous lyrics which hover somewhere between mid-60's Dylan and William S. Burroughs, but with a style, wit and creativity that is all his own. They are lyrics which may not make sense at first but after a few listens, you start to slowly solve the puzzle (although not completely). I discovered Bejar through his work with the New Pornographers and subsequently purchased Destroyer's Rubies and Trouble In Dreams. After that, I was hooked by his ability to craft gorgeous melodies powered by a multitude of instruments to complement his wildly eclectic lyrics. It was not long before I expanded my Destroyer collection.

Bejar is also known to also musically experiment - something I admire, although the results aren't always successful. 2004's Your Blues (which used MIDI synthesizers rather than a standard rhythm section) had some of his best songs, but also a few songs which meandered too much in experimentation and lost me.

Bay of Pigs is probably most similar to Your Blues, in the fact that it veers away from Destroyer's standard sinewy guitar and piano based sound by utilizing synthesizers. It is an EP which contains only two songs - the epic Bay of Pigs and the shorter Ravers.

The former is a musical adventure which grabs you as soon as his vocals come in. Beginning with an ambient sound from a synthesizer which slowly builds, the music then changes to a dance beat and then brings in some guitars and acoustic instruments to supplement the beat and fill out the climax of the song before it finishes off where it began (with a simple synthesizer melody). The lyrics are some of his best, and it is a musically grand experiment. I can listen to it over and over again without becoming bored and discovering something new each time.

Ravers, however, is not so successful. It meanders a little too much and doesn't go anywhere. I wait for a musical climax that never comes. I admire Bejar's need to experiment, and even he admits that not everything he does always works (he was self-critical of Your Blues). I am just not too fond of this track.

It does however wet my appetite for something more in this vein. Hopefully the next Destroyer release will combine some classic Destroyer with some new experimental work he is only hinting of here. One can only hope.