Destroyer - Kaputt

Indie rock's King of obtuse wordsmiths, Dan Bejar, has now been doing business as Destroyer for quite awhile and I was just beginning to think i could put a finger on what i love about him. However, Destroyer's ninth record, Kaputt, has left me equally awed and tongue-tied.

I'll start off by saying that since i've known who Dan Bejar was I've always loved Destroyer AND wanted a really tough-looking black cat with the same name. Of course I want said cat to be a cuddler and generally laid-back bookstore type of cat, in clear contrast to the cat's appearance. I guess that's how i've always seen Mr. Bejar. He's the lovable academic, with his unruly hair, scarves, beard, and commitment to alliteration in his lyrics, but his sardonic wit and ability to create urgency and indefinite drama with small hisses, snarls and pops in his delivery, match the dark name he chooses to record under. Then there's his penchant for 70's style glam that's perfect for exploring alter-ego's.... All that being said, i guess we should get into who we're talking about before the discussion of Kaputt. As the only constant member of Destroyer, the brain to AC Newman's heart and Neko Case's soul in the New Pornographers, a third of the yelping musical cereberus Swan Lake, and co-founder of Hello, Blue Roses, Mr. Bejar has maintained a cavalier persona, as well as a hyper-literate and sharp, if obtuse, tongue on the issues of modern culture, particularly, music and songwriting. His lofty indifference a charming, often funny, and, dare i say 'cool', balance to his apparent compulsion to verbally lay his surroundings to waste. Okay, now onto Kaputt.

Kaputt is a different beast altogether. Bejar's non-chalance no longer feels like he's playing coy, and the immediacy and urgency usually present in his vocals is nowhere to be found. However, his vocals won't be anywhere near the first departure noticed by any listener. While the rest of the indie rock world has been mining their influences from the immenintly cooler and more obvious touchstones of 80's music (i.e. Talking Heads, Blondie, the Smiths, Joy Division,etc) Destroyer's Kaputt is dominated by the sounds of saxophone-dominated early 80's soft-rock and smooth jazz. I'll be the first to admit that this equation sounds like a recipe for disaster. Luckily music, or any art for that matter, is not a math equation and has the ability to be far more 'true' in reality than conceptually. Bejar's vocal delivery stops just short of Nico-esque indifference, and avoids sounding at all contrived. Instead, his voice matches the appearance he's arrived upon. Once the sharp-tongued academic of the underground, Bejar is now the unassailably cool elder aesthete. I see him here as the Dos Equis' "Most Interesting Man in the World" of the music world, casually casting off pearls of wisdom and experience, indifferent to whether his audience will recognize them for what they are. He's calm, and confident, ever the obtuse-wordsmith, but somehow by removing the drama from his delivery he's arrived at a more majestic pose.

And then there's the music.... Bejar worked with acclaimed ambient electronic artist Tim Hecker for the immediately Kaputt-preceding EP, Archer on the Beach. This collaboration did not extend into the Kaputt sessions, however the exercise paid apparent dividends for Destroyer's sound on the record. At first listen, the saxophone-dominated early 1980's sound is unmistakable and hard to adjust to. However, the further into the record you get, and in subsequent listens, Hecker's influence becomes more apparent and the instrumentation, paired with Bejar's new delivery, more beguiling. I don't think any soft-rock or smooth jazz record has ever been described as minimalist or skeletal, and i wouldn't use either term to describe Kaputt. That being said, Destroyer does bring elements of those terms into this record, exploring atmosphere and space more than on any previous LP. At times sounding both lush and spacious, the musical backdrop to Bejar's perfomance (Destroyer is ultimately Bejar's platform) elevates his performance into the realm of a dream-like stateliness.

Destroyer's next move is always hard to predict, and while i certainly wouldn't begrudge a revisiting of the crackling urgency of Destroyer's Rubies, Kaputt seems poised to smolder around the periphery of the music world's consciousness for a good spell. As comfortable as Mr. Bejar seems to be in this new pose, I look forward to whatever our new reluctant advisor does next.

Winter's Bone

It's difficult not to compare Debra Granik's film, Winter's Bone, to The Coen Brothers', True Grit. The two films share so many similarities with each other and so few with any other recent films. Both are set in the foreboding environs of winter in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, and both feature a teenage girl on a determined hunt for a very bad man. True Grit was a great movie by one of today's best directing teams, but if you're looking for the best story of a teenage girl exhibiting determination and grit in the face of hardships presented by America's frontier look no further than Winter's Bone. Jennifer Lawrence's portrayal of Ree Dolly (damn, what a great name!) marks the emergence of a true talent.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Coen Brother's and I loved True Grit, but Winter's Bone is THAT good. And, don't be misled by me, Winter's Bone is NOT a western in the typical sense of the word. Dolly's frontier is not one of a 19th century, lawless, Indian Territory. Her's is one of meth houses, backwoods cops, and a lack of opportunity. Not that these themes are inherently superior, or even necessarily good. As with anything, it's the execution that sets Winter's Bone apart from other films of 2010. Another director could've easily made this story feel like any other overly-stylized, sensational investigation of modern drug culture. Ms. Granik's excellent choice of casting, music, pacing, and shot locations make the film something bigger than that, a true Southern Gothic. Just as important as the drug-world to the film's suspense and underlying tension are the culture-specific music, the surrounding environment and community. And to be clear, that suspense and tension is pervasive and palpable in this relatively quiet film.

What struck me as so remarkable about this film was how rare a thing it is. Western's have made quite a resurgence recently, but on average they bore me, mostly because of their inability to get at the essence of living in a time and place on the fringes of the 'known'. Directors have turned the western into a period piece, where the costuming is more important than the substance. Winter's Bone does more to articulate the hardships of living in an American frontier (on the fringe) than just about any recent Western i can think of (apologies to Dead Man, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and The Proposition), and all within the context of a rural American community. I've written substantially here of musicians exploring America's remaining frontiers and redefining what Americana means. Winter's Bone does the same for film, in particularly the Western.