Sister, The World Cannot Hold Us
What’s next for Dan Bejar? After the smash-hit success of Destroyer’s Kaputt last year, will he continue to explore the sax-n-synth stylings of that album or will he take another one of the sonic left turns that he’s become known for? Who knows? But someday, the guy should make a stripped-down album — I’ve always enjoyed his solo performances. This muy excelente WFMU broadcast (from 2002-ish?) isn’t entirely solo (he’s joined by a pianist on a handful of tracks) but it does see Bejar taking some of his best early songs in a spare, skeletal direction. Short but sweet, the eight songs he plays here show that he can shine in almost any format, marrying simple-but-evocative melodies with lyrics that by this point can only be called Bejarian. OK, that’s pretty gross, but you know what I mean.
The one and only Dan Bejar. This set is mostly This Night/Streethawk songs. If you want stripped-down Destroyer, City of Daughters is pretty minimalist and still possibly my favourite Destroyer album.
solarflares: archives
This Night - Destroyer
(…for Vancouver.)
From Winnipeg to Vancouver and now Japan, very little makes me wistful for the two old hometowns. In Vancouver’s case, I always make an exception for Destroyer.
I’ve written numerous times about how some music is tied, even riveted inextricably to place: for instance, The Weakerthans capture my old hometown, Winnipeg in a way that there’s a sense of ownership, even pride: it’s cool if you enjoy and relate to the words & music, but you have to be from there to really, really get it. Ditto Destroyer- the references to places and spaces ran parallel and even intersected with my own life experience in a way that was plain uncanny at times.
Perhaps it’s because Mr. Bejar depicts an imagined or half-drunk and therefore mythologized (East) Vancouver, one that I inhabited, and is now more vivid due to distance: the Emily Carr years (“You could have been a clerk…/You should have just done the work/but it’s too late, SCHOOL’S OUT”), workday autumn rain waiting for the #3 bus at Main and Terminal, whiskey-flask and Pilsner wanderings from gallery to gallery in Strathcona/Gastown/the DTES and “the Union Street design kids”, forgetting about nature, or visiting Kitsilano and feeling like you needed to show your passport to gain entry, all the while wondering who actually feels at home in a city made up of people from everywhere else: “Hey Easterner!”
Ten years is a long time, or can be, in a place where you never felt comfortable.
“But from the ecological perspective the soundscape has not become quieter. Sound design may have made many motors quieter, but there are more motors in our lives. Sound design may have created some interesting sound signals, but we also hear many more in daily life”
Interview with Hildegard Westerkamp
(via Soundscape « EAR ROOM)
The WSP group at SFU, 1973; left to right: R. M. Schafer, Bruce Davis, Peter Huse, Barry Truax, Howard Broomfield (via WORLD SOUNDSCAPE PROJECT)
Looky what I just found in the archives:
Blair Petrie, “Noise” cassette, ca. 1984.
Did a quick discogs check: $50! Pony up folks, I’ll give it to you for $45…
Cassette rip coming…um, soon. Soooo busy right now. 5 crates of vinyl, ready to go.
Which reminds me: some 1st pressing Current 93 (Lashtal, Sickness of Snakes split) and NWW’s Soresucker is on the block. Holla, my fellow music nerds.
Let’s Hear It For The Vague Blur is the result of two years-worth of hard work that connect_icut stumbled through after completing his last album, They Showed Me the Secret Beaches. The aim was to make darker, more complex material that was made entirely with custom-built software, using no plug-ins, hardware devices or other “short cuts”. After a series of disastrous technical decisions, the project was finally abandoned. The best material from the sessions was salvaged and released as a low-grade download, which did little justice to the quality of the material. Panospria is proud to present this high-quality release of Vague Blur, gloriously remastered by Joshua “Magneticring” Stevenson.
via cvxn:
Here’s how the West End of Vancouver sounded when the clock ran out of time at the end of Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals. I can’t even imagine Granville Street. (via John Bollwitt)
For all you phonography/field recording nerds out there.
shawnajacques: img
1:00 Blind Horses 2:00 Dead Ghosts See you there! Three faves on a tripleheader 4:00 - 6:00! PLUS word has it that the RE-UP BBQ will have one of their carts there. Oh yes. Also: Swing by Lucky’s! My fave local book/comic store plus artgallery. Gabe is the man, and they have records too. #reppinMaHood
3:00 Mode Moderne
4:00 Hard Feelings
5:00 Loscil with Jason Zumpano
6:00 Von Bingen
Magneticring - Live at Guilt and Co. - February 13 2011
My Solo set from last night here in Vancouver.
TR606 Drum machine/ Sequencial Circuits Pro-One/ EDP WASP & Spider / Echolette Tube Tape Echo / Compact Phasing “A’ Stereo Phaser
An excellent mix from Loscil - from the Symbiosis blog.
Read full interview and download the mp3 here.
Here Comes the Night - Destroyer
Forever autumnal listening to me, and closest thing to a valentine to Vancouver that I would post here.
One of the few artists here (next to Loscil) that give me a real sense of place, something shared, like the Fall = Manchester, the Weakerthans = Winnipeg, and so forth. Localness.
The Melodic Energy Commission: M = E/C2 (Energy Discs, 1982)
(via Cassettes Playing Backward - WFMU’s Beware of the Blog)
