After Destroyer released Trouble in Dreams (TMT Review) in 2008, Dan Bejar was starting to tire of his own lyrical fancy, glumly ripping through old notebooks and casting them off behind him page by page, followed by an open letter to America where lyrics became a secondary concern, musically seducing and then slapping the faces of all coke-addled pop fans.
Well, Bejar still doesn’t want to contribute to your Destroyer drinking games; he’s just announced a five-song EP and all five songs were written by Spanish musician Antonio Luque of the band Sr. Chinarro. As in they’re all in Spanish, free from the language that steered and then buried his enthusiasm. Says the D:
It was 2013. The English language seemed spent, despicable, not easily singable. It felt over for English; good for business transactions, but that’s about it. The only other language I know is Spanish, and the only Spanish songs I really know are those of Sr. Chinarro, led by Antonio Luque. I’ve been a decades-long fan of how he conducted his affairs, his strange words, his melodies that have always felt so natural (this is important), his bitter songs about painting the light. Something about them, I knew I could do it…
Recorded early this summer in Vancouver, Bejar was joined by a bunch of other musicians for Five Spanish Songs; here are their names: Nicolas Bragg, David Carswell, John Collins, Stephen Hamm, and Josh Wells. The EP is available for preorder from Merge as a 12-inch or CD EP, with a November 29 release date.
• Destroyer: http://www.mergerecords.com/artists/destroyer
• Merge: http://www.mergerecords.com
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