(pair of mirrors)

#6. Destroyer - Kaputt

“Chinatown” 

Kaputt is a weird little album. First of all, you will never find cohesive, non-nonsensical lyricism on Kaputt. Every line uttered by Dan Bejar on Kaputt seems to emerge from the dark and mysterious depths of his brain. It’s a free association game at its finest. Lines like “I wrote a song for America, they told me it was clever,” followed by “Jessica’s gone on vacation on the dark side of town forever” from “Song For America” make you just sit and wonder where on earth that came from. Another good line is from “Chinatown”: “The wind and the rain: to your detriment you try to explain / The government swallowed up in the squall / I can’t walk away, at all - in Chinatown”. 

On top of the above-mentioned lyrical free-for-all comes a side of musical accompaniment that is decidedly stuck in the eighties. And not just eighties in general, but the cheesiest of eighties. Suave smooth-jazzy soprano saxes and clarinets accompany Bejar’s voice on “Chinaown” and “Downtown.” Light percussions and snazzy synths dominate “Savage Night at the Opera”. Easy listening flutes provide the melody for “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker.” In the words of my ever-wise boyfriend: “They kind of sound like Pet Shop Boys.” 

On paper, Kaputt as an album should not add up to much. And yet the eighties-ness of the music, the whimsical subject matter, and the nonchalance of Bejar’s voice as well as his fake British accent all combine to make a brilliantly light album, one which borders on ironic, sarcastic, and, well, insane. 

-L