• News

• All

Sep 13, 2017 By Christopher Roberts Destroyer

Find It At: {article-find} {name} {/article-find}

Destroyer (the project of Dan Bejar) is releasing a new album, ken, on October 20 via Merge. Previously he shared a lyric video for its first single, “Sky’s Grey” (which was one of our Songs of the Week). Now he has shared another song from the album, “Tinseltown Swimming In Blood,” via a video. Karen Zolo (aka KC) directed the clip, which was inspired by Chris Marker’s 1962 science fiction short film La Jetée (which also inspired Terry Gilliam’s 1995 film 12 Monkeys and was about time travel). Like the original film, the “Tinseltown Swimming In Blood” video is made up of black & white still photos. Bejar stars alongside Anisa Tejpar. At first it seems they are enjoying a day out at a museum, before things take a violet turn at the end. Watch it below.

Zolo had this to say about the video in a press release: “I’d just had a conversation about artist Chris Marker with a friend when I was approached to make a music video for the upcoming Destroyer album. ‘You have a month.’ Okay… I had no idea what the song even sounded like, but the only idea I had was to remake Chris Marker’s La Jetée as faithfully as possible. It’s not just an homage to the great cine-poet; it’s also about the medium of film, about still photography. It would have been a billion times easier and less stressful to shoot it digitally, but it was worth it.”

Ken‘s title was inspired by the Suede single “The Wild Ones” (from 1994’s Dog Man Star). Bejar had this to say about the album, and the Suede connection, in a previous press release: “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.’”

The album is the follow-up to 2015’s Poison Season. Josh Wells of Black Mountain (who has been the drummer in Destroyer since 2012) produced ken, which was recorded in its entirety in the jam space/studio space called The Balloon Factory. Unlike Poison Season, ken wasn’t recorded by the whole band at the same time, but everyone in the Destroyer band does show up on the album.

The album will be available as a deluxe LP pressed on opaque yellow vinyl. The deluxe edition will include a bonus 7-inch single on black vinyl that contains solo acoustic versions of the album tracks “A Light Travels Down the Catwalk” and “Stay Lost.”

Destroyer Tour Dates:

EU Tour Dates:

Nov 12 Hamburg, DE - Kampnagel
Nov 13 Aarhus, DK - Voxhall
Nov 14 Oslo, NO - John Dee
Nov 15 Stockholm, SE - Fasching
Nov 16 Copenhagen, DN - Vega
Nov 17 Berlin, DE - Festsaal Kreuzberg
Nov 19 Dusseldorf, DE - New Fall Festival
Nov 21 Zurich, CH - Rote Fabrik
Nov 22 Montpellier, FR - Le Rockstore
Nov 23 San Sebastian, ES - Teatro Victoria Eugenia
Nov 24 Lisbon, PR - Mexefest
Nov 25 Madrid, ES - Teatro Barcelo
Nov 26 Valencia, ES - La Rambleta
Nov 27 Barcelona, ES - Sala Bikini
Nov 29 Lille, FR - L’Aeronef
Nov 30 Brighton, UK - Patterns
Dec 01 Leeds, UK - Brudenell Social Club
Dec 03 Dublin, IE - Button Factory
Dec 05 Glasgow, UK - CCA (270)
Dec 06 Newcastle, UK - The Cluny
Dec 07 London, UK - Scala
Dec 08 Paris, FR - Petit Bain
Dec 09 Amsterdam, NE - Paradiso Noord
Dec 10 Brussels, BE - Botanique Brussels

North American Tour Dates:

Jan 10 Portland, OR - The Wonder Ballroom
Jan 11 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
Jan 12 Los Angeles, CA - The Regent Theater
Jan 13 Phoenix, AZ - The Crescent Ballroom
Jan 15 Austin, TX - The Mohawk
Jan 16 Dallas, TX - Club Dada
Jan 17 Kansas City, MO - Record Bar
Jan 18 Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line Music Cafe
Jan 19 Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon
Jan 20 Chicago, IL - Metro
Jan 21 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick
Jan 22 Toronto, ON - Phoenix Concert Theatre
Jan 23 Montreal, QC - Theatre Fairmount
Jan 24 Cambridge, MA - The Sinclair
Jan 26 Philadelphia, PA - Underground Arts
Jan 27 Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Steel
Jan 28 Washington, DC - Black Cat
Jan 29 Asheville, NC - Grey Eagle
Jan 30 Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle
Jan 31 Atlanta, GA - Terminal West
Feb 01 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge
Feb 02 St. Louis, MO - Blueberry Hill
Feb 03 Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room
Feb 05 Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater
Feb 06 Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge
Feb 07 Boise, ID - Olympic Venue
Feb 08 Seattle, WA - Neptune Theatre
Feb 09 Vancouver, BC - The Commodore Ballroom

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.