Dan Bejar started Destroyer as a solo home-recording project in the early to mid-nineties. Exploring and overturning genres such as glam, MIDI, yacht rock, & even underground Spanish independent artists, Bejar was proclaimed “Rock’s Exiled King” by The Fader.
LABYRINTHITIS is a journey deep into uncharted Dan Bejar country. It brims
with mystic and intoxicating terrain, the threads of Bejar’s notes woven through
by a trove of allusions at once eerily familiar and intimately perplexing. “Do you
remember the mythic beast?” Bejar asks at the outset of “Tintoretto, It’s for
You,” casting torchlight over the labyrinth’s corridors. “Tintoretto, it’s for you /
The ceiling’s on fire and the contract is binding.”
More than an arcane puzzle for the listener, LABYRINTHITIS warps and winds
through unfamiliar territory for Bejar as well. Written largely in 2020 and
recorded the following spring, the album most often finds Bejar and frequent
collaborator John Collins seeking the mythic artifacts buried somewhere under
the dance floor, from the glitzy spiral of “It Takes a Thief” to the Books-ian
collage bliss of the title track. Initial song ideas ventured forth from disco, Art of
Noise, and New Order, Bejar and Collins championing the over-the-top
madcapper-y.
Bejar and Collins conducted their questing in the height of isolation, Collins on
the remote Galiano Island and Bejar in nearby Vancouver, sending ideas back
and forth when restrictions didn’t allow them to meet. Ahead of mixing, the
Destroyer band was brought into the fold to further the unprepared
synchronicity and mutual discovery.
TRACKLIST:
1. It’s In Your Heart Now
2. Suffer
3. June
4. All My Pretty Dresses
5. Tintoretto, It’s For You
6. Labyrinthitis
7. Eat The Wine, Drink The Bread
8. It Takes A Thief
9. The States
10. The Last Song
