Kaputt - Destroyer

5.0/5.0

New Pornographers' Dan Bejar releases another record with the nuances of 70s radio soft rock.

Supreme rambler Dan Bejar publishes his musings with smooth jazz sax and soft flow, that enacts those fond living room memories of my mother's favorite fusion records. And I hated them.

But Kaputt persuades listeners to absorb those rhythms that make your chin bob left-and-right, groove, and truly enjoy those qualities that when you thought were so painfully tacky. (It doesn't take much convincing.) Bejar created a masterpiece founded on these qualities that makes even the most attention-deficient pick up every single one of his words-- even in the nine minute “Suicide Demo For Kara Walker”, or the everlasting final track “Bay of Pigs (Detail).”

Lyrically speaking, Kaputt is dumbfounding-- how does Bejar keep it together with rushed stanzas of prose? He speaks as I would expect one to speak at some sort of poetry reading, specifically one that is being held in some sort of questionable establishment where listeners are hardly in a correct state of mind and somehow think the reciter is as out-of-sorts as they are-- when clearly the speaker, Bejar in this case, is very conscious of every word he utters. Kaputt has a stream-of-consciousness quality to it, but the lyrics are resounding nonetheless (see: “Poor in Love.”)

The lyrical archetype of Kaputt is “Who knew?” which is present on “Kaputt” and “Song for America.” Is this a mere call-out for sympathy? Or just a chance for Bejar to moan and blend his voice with the retro-goings on? Or perhaps it is just a means to make listeners more curious or more attentive to Bejar's message?

“Kaputt” describes the essence of its album, synthesizing a dream-like quality comparable to Daft Punk's “Something Like Us.” (The music video is all too fitting for this song, and really, the entire album.) The song ends with Bejar, as if on the verge of spilling his heart out, saying his catch phrase “who knew?” with a saxophone to boot. This song fades out in such a manner that I would expect Dan Bejar dancing on the beach on a deserted beach, like Herb Alpert in the music video for “Rise.”

Bejar dabbles with musical genres that, for lack of a better term, would generally be considered sub-par. Regardless, Kaputt keeps pounding out pop-ambient-smooth-jazz-fusion melodic allusions that it creates a mound of genius rooted in the generic music library of middle-aged women. And I dig Destroyer for doing it. 

Watch the video for "Kaputt" here: