The Music Room, Issue 39

Chandler Levack March 22, 2011 The season’s best albums: Destroyer, Braids, PJ Harvey and more.

Dan Bejar’s Destroyer has always been a mutable concept. On Kaputt (Merge), his ninth album, Bejar risks all—and it might just be his artistic triumph. Glistening with soft-rock saxophones, New Romantic synth solos and insider cocaine quips, Kaputt finds glamour in what happens after last call. Supported by Bejar’s signature Muppet vox and acid-tongued lyricism, “Chinatown” plays like a film noir, while the nearly ten-minute ambient-disco throwdown “Bay Of Pigs” might be the only Destroyer song you would actually want to fuck to.

Sumptuous golden light filtered through a wild pack of Montrealers: an admittedly ridiculous way …

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Tenth Anniversary: Spring

ISSUE 43 Tenth Anniversary: Spring 2012

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also in this issue:

  • Face the Music

    by Tim Falconer How can someone who passionately loves music also be a terrible singer? Tim Falconer takes up voice lessons—and discovers the surprising science of tone deafness.
  • The Big Job

    by Deni Y. Béchard As a teenager, Deni Y. Béchard went to Vancouver to live with his father, an ex-con with a penchant for telling tall tales. He met a man desperate to forget the past.
  • The Homesickness of Astronauts

    by Johanna Skibsrud "She felt a great sadness. She would remember next to nothing of this, even soon."
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