***Labyrinthitis brims with mystic and intoxicating terrain, the threads of Dan Bejar’s notes woven through by allusions at once eerily familiar and intimately perplexing. The record circuitously draws ever inward, each turn offering giddy surprise, anxious esoterica, and thumping emotionality at equal odds. More than an arcane puzzle for the listener, Labyrinthitis warps and winds through unfamiliar territory for Bejar as well. Written largely in 2020 and recorded the following spring, the album most often finds Bejar and frequent collaborator John Collins seeking the mythic artifacts buried somewhere under the dance floor, from the glitzy spiral of “It Takes a Thief” to the Books-ian collage bliss of the title track. Initial song ideas ventured forth from disco, Art of Noise, and New Order, Bejar and Collins championing the over-the-top madcappery. “John is in his 50s, and I’m almost there, but we used to go to clubs,” Bejar laughs. “Our version may have been punk clubs, but our touchstones for the album were more true to disco.”
LP $20.35
03/25/2022
CD $12.75
03/25/2022
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received an 8.5 Best New Music rating from Pitchfork. DESTROYER conceived of Have We Met as a Y2K album. DAN BEJAR assigned producer and bandmate JOHN COLLINS the role of layering synth and rhythm sections over demos with the period-specific Björk, Air, and Massive Attack in mind, but he soon realized the sonic template was too removed from Destroyer’s own, and the idea of a concept was silly anyway. So he abandoned it and gave Collins the most timeless instruction of all: “Make it sound cool.” The result is not a startling departure from 2017’s ken, but unlike that more band-oriented approach, the only actual instruments that appear are bass and electric guitar. MIDI instrumentation will of course invite Your Blues and Kaputt nostalgia, but Have We Met is buoyed by precise, plasticky guitar shredding three-dimensionally across massive percussion—the loudest and dirtiest drums on a Destroyer record to date. Atmosphere and loose approximations of a place or feeling are what we’ve come to expect from any new Destroyer record—certainly not an easily defined and stridently adhered to theme or concept. Have We Met manages to meet somewhere between those disparate Y2K reference points and Destroyer’s own area of expertise, gliding deftly into territory that marries the old strident Destroyer with the new, aged crooning one of late.
LP $18.85
01/31/2020
CD $13.75
01/31/2020
***REISSUED ON VINYL!!! The second full-length from DESTROYER, originally released 20 years ago documents DAN BEJAR’s evolution from lo-fi bedroom tyro to bona fide master of the rock album, it also contains a massive percentage of superlative Destroyer "classics." 1998's City of Daughters features some of the first steps out of the demo-tapey experimentation of earlier recordings, with songs like "Comments On The World As Will" refining the sound of that stripped-down earlier work, and the seminal "No Cease Fires" offering us the first taste of just what a full-band Destroyer might conjure. Pressed on opaque red vinyl and limited to 3,000 copies for the world. (STREET DATE - 5/25/2018)
LP $18.50
05/25/2018
CD $9.85
04/20/2010
2XLP $13.95
05/25/2018
***REISSUED ON VINYL!!! The third album from Vancouver-based songwriting craftsman DANIEL BEJAR. A sweet, but not too sweet blend of poetic folk, and simple pop driven by gorgeous melodies, deep lyrics, and blackmail. Features keyboard work from JASON ZUMPANO. Pressed on orange vinyl and limited to 3,000 copies for the world.
LP $18.50
05/25/2018
CD $13.75
04/20/2010
***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.9 rating from Pitchfork. Of his 12th studio album and its enigmatic title, DESTROYER's DAN BEJAR offers the following: "Sometime last year, I discovered that the original name for 'The Wild Ones' (one of the great English-language ballads of the last 100 years or so) was 'Ken.' I had an epiphany, I was physically struck by this information. In an attempt to hold on to this feeling, I decided to lift the original title of that song and use it for my own purposes. It’s unclear to me what that purpose is, or what the connection is. I was not thinking about Suede when making this record. I was thinking about the last few years of the Thatcher era. Those were the years when music first really came at me like a sickness, I had it bad. Maybe 'The Wild Ones' speaks to that feeling, probably why Suede made no sense in America. I think 'ken' also means 'to know.' ken was produced by JOSH WELLS of Black Mountain, who has been the drummer in Destroyer since 2012. The album was recorded in its entirety in the jam space/studio space that the group calls The Balloon Factory. However, unlike Poison Season, ken was not recorded as a 'band' record. CD in 4-panel matte digipaks with spot gloss varnish and 12-page insert. LP housed in die-cut matte jackets with spot gloss details and 11”x11” inserts. LP includes a download. No Export outside North America.
LP $18.50
10/20/2017
CD $13.75
10/20/2017
***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received a 7.9 rating from Pitchfork. Of his 12th studio album and its enigmatic title, DESTROYER's DAN BEJAR offers the following: "Sometime last year, I discovered that the original name for 'The Wild Ones' (one of the great English-language ballads of the last 100 years or so) was 'Ken.' I had an epiphany, I was physically struck by this information. In an attempt to hold on to this feeling, I decided to lift the original title of that song and use it for my own purposes. It’s unclear to me what that purpose is, or what the connection is. I was not thinking about Suede when making this record. I was thinking about the last few years of the Thatcher era. Those were the years when music first really came at me like a sickness, I had it bad. Maybe 'The Wild Ones' speaks to that feeling, probably why Suede made no sense in America. I think 'ken' also means 'to know.' ken was produced by JOSH WELLS of Black Mountain, who has been the drummer in Destroyer since 2012. The album was recorded in its entirety in the jam space/studio space that the group calls The Balloon Factory. However, unlike Poison Season, ken was not recorded as a 'band' record. CD in 4-panel matte digipaks with spot gloss varnish and 12-page insert. LP housed in die-cut matte jackets with spot gloss details and 11”x11” inserts and download. Limited edition LP version pressed on yellow...
LP+7" $23.95
10/20/2017
***We recorded a song called “My Mystery” a year and a half ago. Kind of a light number, vaguely danceable. Wistful, looking back not unfondly on time spent and dull misadventures had within the dead-as-a-doornail music industry. And the feeling of where it leaves you, like a rat in the middle of the ocean, though not as harsh as that; as if rats could swim an ocean’s length. Anyway, the song was not in keeping with the shadow spirit of Poison Season, and so it got shelved. Then one day DJjohnedwardcollins@gmail.com called me up and said, “You got any shit for me? Features the track "My Mystery" backed with a mix by DJjohnedwardcollins@gmail.com. (STREET DATE - 5/06/2016)
12" $10.50
05/06/2016
***On August 28, DESTROYER returns with a new full-length, Poison Season. Poison Season opens with Vancouver native DAN BEJAR swathed in Hunky Dory strings. He’s a dashboard Bowie surveying four wracked characters—Jesus, Jacob, Judy, Jack—simultaneously Biblical and musical theatre. This bittersweet, Times Square-set fanfare is reprised twice more on the record—first as swaying, saxophone-stoked “street-rock” and then finally as a curtain-closing reverie. Mr. Bejar has long displayed a chameleonic instinct for change while maintaining a unified aesthetic (rather than just pinballing between reference points). No two records sound the same, but they’re always uniquely Destroyer. His latest incarnation often appears to take sonic cues from a distinctly British (usually Scottish, to be precise) strain of sophisti-pop: you might hear traces of Aztec Camera, Prefab Sprout, Orange Juice, or The Blow Monkeys. These songs merge a casual literary brilliance with intense melodic verve, nimble arrangements, and a certain blue-eyed soul sadness. LP version packaged in gatefold jackets with download.
CD $13.50
08/28/2015
2XLP $21.95
08/28/2015
***The sixth full-length album from Vancouver songwriter and "part time" NEW PORNOGRAPHERS member DANIEL BEJAR, his second release on Merge. Taking a departure from his previous sprawling rock opus This Night, Your Blues is bombastic and bold at times, quiet and soothing at others, as an almost theatrical quality informs the compositions. Poetic, incisive, reflective and biting where need be. STREET DATE - 03/09/2004
LP $18.25
12/02/2014
CD $13.75
03/16/2004
***The fifth album from acclaimed Vancouver songwriter DANIEL BEJAR (NEW PORNOGRAPHERS), and his first release on Merge. Fourteen tracks of layered textures and rhythms centered around Bejar's oblique lyrics and vocal delivery. Hand claps, reverb-tweaked guitar solos, melodica, synth riffs, and more.
CD $13.75
10/08/2002
2XLP $19.95
04/20/2013
***In 1997, Granted Passage Cassettes (now Triple Crown Audio Recordings) asked Vancouver-based singer songwriter DAN BEJAR for a contribution to a various artist compilation under his DESTROYER moniker. Bejar responded with over twenty-tracks for consideration, which eventually became a sixteen-track private press Destroyer cassette titled Ideas For Songs, and was distributed amongst music fans acros British Columbia. Now Triple Crown is giving Ideas For Songs new life with a legitimate vinyl release. Recorded between 1995-1997, these remastered tracks provide insight into Bejar’s creative mind and far exceed the lowlife quality of current bootleg downloads. Packaged with a fresh transfer of Welsh-born painter SYLVIA SLEIGH’s (1916-2010) original nude Bejar portrait artwork. Includes a free download.
LP $18.95
04/05/2011
MP3 $9.90
04/05/2011
FLAC $11.99
04/05/2011
***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received an 8.8 Best New Music rating from Pitchfork. Kaputt by Malaparte, which DAN BEJAR has never read… KARA WALKER, specifically the lyrics she contributed to the song “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker”… Chinatown, the neighborhood bordering on Bejar’s… Baby blue eyes… ‘80s Miles Davis… ‘90s Gil Evans… Last Tango in Paris… NIC BRAGG who played lead guitar on every song, again… Fretless bass… The hopelessness of the future of music… The pointlessness of writing songs for today… V-Drums… The superiority of poetry and plays… And what’s to become of film?… The Cocaine Addict… American Communism… Downtown, the neighborhood bordering on Bejar’s… The LinnDrum… Avalon and, more specifically, Boys and Girls… The devastated mind of JC/DC, who recorded, produced and mixed this record from fall of 2008 to spring of 2010… The back-up vocals of certain Roy Ayers and Long John Baldry tours… Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence… No Exports to Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
CD $13.75
01/25/2011
2XLP $28.50
01/25/2011
***DESTROYER’s limited-edition 12-inch “Archer on the Beach” b/w “Grief Point” is inspired by the music of Kranky recording artists TIM HECKER and LOSCIL and achieved through their full collaboration. Destroyer mastermind DAN BEJAR says, “The reason why this has to be seen as a collaboration, rather than strictly a Destroyer release, is that, for the first time, I’m not responsible for any of the music contained on this EP aside from the vocals, the general chord progression of ‘Archer on the Beach,’ and maybe a couple of the sound effects.” “Archer on the Beach” is a meditation on the need to grapple with the 20th century in one’s own special way and with style, this time through singing quietly, through repetition, and through leaving lots of space between words, as well as finally learning to love crowds and nature. “Grief Point” is the first recording Bejar made after deciding never to record again. It is a one-time exploration of the self-explanatory world, recorded in an office and on the street. Limited edition of 1,000 copies that include a digital download coupon. (STREET DATE - 11/02/2010)
12" $9.45
11/02/2010
***An extended vinyl release of the sixth full-length album from Vancouver songsmith DAN BEJAR (NEW PORNOGRAPHERS) under his DESTROYER moniker. Includes the 20-minute bonus track “Loscil’s Rubies” remixed by SCOTT MORGAN on Side 3. Second reissue pressing on white opaque vinyl with download.
CD $13.75
02/20/2006
2XLP $25.95
07/17/2012