Of Vancouver

Everybody shut up because there's a new Destroyer album. Justin Curto at NYMag.com speaks to Dan Bejar and Dan speaks back in quavering rush that overflows the metre like a long-sighted calligrapher trying to fill out a form, probably. "The weight of Destroyer music being just the sound of this one weird voice over decades is a little heavy," he says. The lack of congruence between Destroyer's (lately) smooth and electronic music and how Dan's singing rambles around in it is why we sit down and listen to his albums rather than letting them hum in the background like the functional chillout Spotify wants all bands to become. There's a tension there or at least a folk-borne disconnect or a wait-I-just-thought-of-something painterly quality to Destroyer. It's a weight and a weight-off. And anyway, here's another one.

You started performing as Destroyer 30 years ago this year. How’s that for you to think about?

It’s insane. It’s madness. I mean, I don’t remember being 22. The idea that this is something that has structured my life for that long is pretty weird. But not as weird as the rigmarole of the music industry. Being in the business, like, something that’s quite geared toward youth culture, and still trying to find your place within that, because you’re not famous, but you’re also not a struggling band. You’re just kind of cruising down the middle, doing a thing for decades. Usually people go up or go away. It’s strange to be still in the trenches, but everyone you know is gone.

Is it still just forward from here?

How I do it is so unconscious. I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, I really don’t. I know I’m writing. Slowly, slower than I ever have, but I’m never gonna stop doing that. I still get off on it.

The full interview is here.