After twenty-five years and thirteen albums, it finally feels like weโre becoming acquainted with Dan Bejar outside of the Destroyer guise. This is a man with a flare for abstract story-telling. An artist residing on the fringes of mainstream-exposure and heโs happy with his position in the world. Who can blame him, really? Especially if weโre to go by his depiction of the world on his latest release, Have We Met.
This newfound familiarity is founded on the albumโs inception. During the night, while his wife and daughter slept in their Vancouver home, Destroyerโs Dan Bejar recorded hushed vocals into a mic connected to his laptop at his kitchen table. Delivered in an uncharacteristically subdued tone, with the efficiency and purpose of scribbling ideas on scraps of paper, Bejar revisited lines initially penned as far back as 2011, during the making of Kaputt. These demos were sent to long-term Destroyer collaborator and producer John Collins, giving him a sense of the melody in Bejarโs mind. The intimacy and stream-of-conscious ebb and flow in both Bejarโs timbre and train of thought in those moments were never re-recorded as production on the record progressed. What we hear from him on Have We Met is the truest form of expression from the Canadian singer-songwriter. The audience, in that regard, is granted a similar existence to how he navigated the record in that weโre permitted to roam freely throughout these ten songs.
First impressions of this world presents a dismal place populated by equally morose dwellers. For a visual representation, you neednโt venture further than the video for most recent single, โCue Synthesizerโ, where silent streets are interrupted by hooded figures indulging in an impressive display of interpretive dance inspired by the songโs scuzzy bass-lines and drum samples straight from the 1990s. The 90s sonic callback is, in part, a continuation of the combined lounge-jazz and synth-pop sensibilities explored on previous releases Ken and Kaputt heightened by the recent five-hour cut of Wim Wendersโ sci-fi thriller Until The End of the World, a film made in 1991 that tried to predict how music would sound in 1999. Here, Bejar and Collins thrive on melodies that hark back to specific moments and artists of the 90s, such as the sophistication of Sade.
A desolate narrative woven throughout Bejarโs imagery often creates claustrophobic songs which, from the offset, are not for the faint-hearted. Bejar, our conduit in this realm, see-saws in his invitation to listeners to observe this place: โJust look at the world around, actually, no donโt look,โ he intones on โThe Ravenโ. This stark lament is continued when Bejar further implies that โthe idea of the world is no goodโ. Despite this cautionary exclamation, itโs impossible to divert your attention away from the many atrocities that make-up Destroyerโs most dynamic record. Here, your chances of encountering the Boston Strangler are as good as coming across a gaggle of โchicken-shit singers paying their duesโ or โanother dead rich runaway.โ It becomes alarmingly clear that, amidst infectious instrumentation bolstered by brilliantly pastiche synth-pop and sparsely composed menacing melodies, Bejarโs musings have brought us to a place where the living and the dead co-exist: โThe dead twist and shout in an invisible world.โ Naturally, this gives imagination as much importance as reality in the construction of the songs. Itโs as though weโve entered a fictional small town shrouded in darkness ร la David Lynchโs Twin Peaks.
Even in the pared-back moments, thereโs drama. Take the three-minute instrumental, โHave We Metโ, a borderline new-age meditation given an edge with a sharp guitar to disrupt any semblance of calm. Consider it possessing a similar duality to Laura Palmer of the aforementioned Twin Peaks. Itโs strange then, to picture the characters portrayed by Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy in John Hughesโ Pretty In Pink treading the same terrain as Palmer as the listener cannot help but immediately think of the music featured in brat-pack films as soon as the bright synths of โIt Just Doesn’t Happenโ take off. However, the drama that unfolds across this record is far more substantial, bearing more consequence than the pitfalls of puppy love.
Thematically, where the worlds of theatre and film have previously been explored across Destroyerโs discography, it intensifies on this record, at one point manifesting in Bejar delivering stage directions on โCue Synthesizerโ (โCue synthesizer, cue guitar, bring in the drums, cue fake drumโ). While thereโs a wonderful stylistic variety across the arrangements, Collins has woven an eerie air throughout each song, adding a cinematic quality to the instrumentation. As always, Bejarโs excess of rich language manages to remain on the right side of portension via his irresistible comic timing. He spits out savage quips like โBeen to America, been to Europe, itโs the same shit,โ with an irrefutable air. This aspect of his artistry has resulted in many entertaining explorations, nay mockery, of various cultural subdivisions; publication houses (see 2001 LP, Streethawk: A Seduction), crummy musicians (โI heard your record, itโs alrightโ), and a recent spotlight on the stage (โGive up acting? Fuck no! Iโm just starting to get the good partsโ).
The albumโs title, especially within the context of Bejarโs songwriting style, is particularly apt. From 1996โs Weโll Build Them A Golden Bridge through to Ken, arriving two decades later, Destroyer fans are accustomed to meeting characters by name (โMelaine and Jennifer and Melaineโ, โHelenaโ,) or their circumstances in a professional capacity. We get this with โThe Television Music Supervisorโ, the gorgeously ethereal centrepiece which immediately distinguishes itself as one of Destroyerโs finest compositions.
Punctuated with tremors and glitches, interfering with an otherwise serene synth which dances like dust particles caught in the glow of light, the arrangement floats atop textures that, in certain moments, heralds a fleeting fragility heard sparingly from Aphex Twin or Radiohead. The protagonist is an ailing figure, stagnant on his death-bed, ruminating on past regrets from his life and career: โThe Television Music Supervisor says, I canโt believe what Iโve done, what Iโve said,โ sings Bejar. In a recent interview, the singer cited the scene of important figures assessing their life achievements and shortcomings, spurred by deathโs call as one of his favourite genres; โIn this instance, itโs a TV music supervisor โฆ as the person who wields the ultimate power in our society,โ Bejar posits. โWhich is absurd, but kind of a tiny bit true as far as culture and taste-making goes.โ If weโre to consider how easily bound people become nowadays to boxsets and reality TV, itโs difficult to disregard Bejarโs stance. The source of this particular individualโs regret is left open to interpretation. Is it founded on an ineptitude towards a fundamental aspect of his career (โClickety click click, the music makes a musical sound measured in echoesโ) or perhaps there was a long-standing rift between the โfamous novelist brother shithead number one and shithead number twoโ.
Elsewhere, โKinda Darkโ, comes with sincere vocals layered atop a cacophony of power guitar riffs played by Nicolas Bragg and extended synth notes lingering airily overhead like an impenetrable mist. The arrangement, steered by this hazed synth, instantly conjures a spooky visual of an ostentatious estate straight from a Shirley Jackson novel: โThe palace has a moss problem, it glows in the dawn,โ Bejar sings, developing a nocturnal scene. Once the drum sample kicks in, thereโs a shift in mood. Suddenly, an unsettling feeling descends, a worry of things going bump in the night, as with Jacksonโs The Haunting of Hill House which spawned two film versions in 1963 and 1999 along with a Netflix series. This feeling fails to dissipate with the introduction of spiky guitar notes, squawking as blackbirds do. Itโs all at once sultry and unsettling, a track that continuously draws the listener back under its alluring spell.
Across Bejarโs career, as a solo artist and occasional member of The New Pornographers and short-lived supergroup Swan Lake with Wolf Paradeโs Spencer Krugg and Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes, his songwriting has always retained an idiosyncratic free-form flow. In recent years, the visceral visual experience from his work, as noted in 2017โs Ken, has become somewhat more concentrated. On this album, we get this from the vivid image of a violent sea of intense red โ or blood โ alluded to in the title of lead-single โCrimson Tideโ, or a swarm of looped vocals that close the album, making the listener feel as though theyโre under the threat of an army of locusts. In those instances, where the listener hasnโt been spoonfed the details of the setting, it becomes our job, as audience, to follow these cues with our mindโs eye, to fill in the blanks.
In this vein, Have We Metโs overall mood coupled with Bejarโs descriptive use of language immediately transforms these songs into fully realised settings. In these murky and menacing melodies, creating the aural equivalent of a murder-mystery TV mini-series, Bejar’s transition from songwriter to musical dramatist is complete. Even after repeated listens, when all the characters and plot-lines have been revealed to us, the element of surprise remains in-tact across this immersive offering.
