Second Take: Destroyer - "Kaputt"

Adventurous doesn’t even begin to describe Kaputt, Dan Bejar’s new release under the moniker Destroyer. Disregarding both staid indie-rock convention as well as good common sense, Bejar has managed to incorporate smooth electro-jazz keys and saxophones without making them sound cheesy. In fact, this album may be the sexiest rock album since Air’s excellent Moon Safari.

Bejar is unique in that however cryptic and possibly self-referencing his lyrics can get, he is overall a great writer. His songs are a blurry canvass rife with symbolism, filled with refutations of the world at large’s simplistic understanding of love. Quite complicated stuff, and considered meaningful enough to inspire his own Wiki dedicated to deciphering the songwriter’s dense lyrics, and his own drinking game.

The confusion of the listener is no bother to Bejar. After the bewildering opening lines of Blue Eyes - "You terrify the land / You are pestle and mortar. You’re first love’s new order, mother nature’s sun / King of the Everglades / Population one" - the singer declares that "I write poetry for myself." Suffice to say, Destroyer’s albums, Kaputt included, aren’t designed for the consumption of the masses. Perhaps it is from his blatant disregard for pop sensibilities that has garnered Bejar his small yet intensely devoted fanbase?

Bejar’s cult-inspiring appeal is not so much about the deliberately obtuse content of his lyrics as it is for the drunken, decentered way in which he delivers them. His songs share the same appeal of the poems of Arthur Rimbaud in that they evoke a "derangement of the senses" in the listener, where the effortless immediacy of his drunken, rhythmic phrasing and paralanguage make the lyrics feel poignant. Songs tend to suddenly switch from soft and gentle murmurs to flamboyant moments of sharp emphasis, from lazy unexpected falsettos to near yelling, or from almost-whispered humming to series of quick, declarative bursts of talking.

His ramshackle delivery keeps the songs strangely poignant, evoking the opaque ramblings of the beat poets of yesteryear. Consider the lyrics of Bay of Bigs (Detail), which introduce the listener to Magnolia, who has a heart made of wood, Christine White, whose mere mention infuriates Bejar, and "Nancy, in a state of crisis, on a cloud." The song these women are mentioned in also addresses the world as a "fucking explosion that turns us around," and where the song’s listener is described as a traveller seeking "the conclusion of the world’s unutterable secret." The guy could sing the phonebook and make it sound interesting.

And strangely enough, the more bizarre and overwrought the lyrics Bejar sings are, the harder-hitting the lines are. For example, take that obtuse bit about the traveller searching for the unutterable secret. The line is accompanied by a sudden surge of handclaps and acoustic guitar chords, creating an overall effect that is both entrancing and, strangely, affecting.

However, a level of enthusiasm present on previous records seem absent in Destroyer’s ninth LP. Bejar seems lackadaisical, and his voice never seems to get worked up like it used to. At times, this lack of energy makes him sound half-asleep. Lucky for him, the periodic backing female vocals give key lines of poetry the solidity they demand. His lack of enthusiasm doesn’t damn the record by any means, but instead only leaves the music a little less dynamic and more texturally-focused than usual.

Bejar credits artists like Roxy Music and Gil Evans as influences on Kaputt, but the album seems more akin to modern-day Van Morrison drunk on Robitussin. Bejar has self-described his music as "European Blues" in previous releases, a type of blue-eyed soul obsessed with brilliantly idiosyncratic wordplay and evolving arrangements. This new album is notable in its copious use of saxophones and woodwinds, crafting a wonderfully unique sound that simultaneously pays homage to Thin White Duke era Bowie and funk legend Roy Ayers.

Kaputt is the sort of oddly-brilliant, unclassifiable album that arrives only once in a while. The lush instrumentation and dense wordplay draws you in as it attempts to distance itself from you. Bejar’s latest output is insularly drawn in around itself, and much like the averred bohemian that Bejar comes off as, seems to have no need for approval. As the listener, you could shrug it off and move onto something more accessible, for all the record cares. But that’s inconsequential, because you probably won’t. Kaputt is a brilliant yet flawed piece of composition, and easily the first great record of 2011.