Dan Bejar is back after a two-year absence with his upcoming album via Merge Records titled “Have We Met” out January 31.
Destroyer teases fans with an offering from the beginning of his thirteenth full-length album with “Crimson Tide.” No, there’s no referencing the sweet ’90s movie featuring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman.
Bejar captures the persona of an ’80s lounge singer with perfectly disheveled hair in the co-directed short film by David Galloway and David Ehrenreich titled “Ashcroft.”
David Galloway breaks it down:
Do you like the 1985 politico-dance-thriller White Nights? What about John Hughes’ controversial 1986 proleteeniat love letter to the hoi polloi, Pretty In Pink? What do these seminal films of the 1980s have to do with Destroyer’s overture to 2020, Have We Met? They are canonized not only by their groundbreaking and visionary contributions to Hollywood, they are escorted by the rarefied but much-maligned “movie tie-in music video.” So this is like that, only a little bit different. I don’t know if this particular movie is a “movie” in the traditional sense of the trope, and I don’t know if there will be a soundtrack. There might be a bootleg mix-tape, though.
That movie is Ashcroft: an ambiguous short, an art-house film that explores time, memory, fruit, the landscape of the British Columbia interior, and recovery from — and into — deception. “Ashcroft is not a place of passive rest, but rather an intoxicating playground for excavation and manipulation” is a quote from the filmmakers’ press release. Movies need songs [kind of] and songs need movies [videos?]. This is a music video about a movie, or for a movie, or really just with a movie. The point is: they love each other. With “Crimson Tide,” Destroyer introduces listeners to yet another version of the Bejar Enigma, and ushers viewers to seats in an alternate cinematic universe. The dramatic music video that ties in to film is a lost art. Or maybe it’s just a vulgar one. Either way, there’s no rotten tomatoes here. Only rotten apples.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Crimson Tide”
02 “Kinda Dark”
03 “It Just Doesn’t Happen”
04 “The Television Music Supervisor”
05 “The Raven”
06 “Cue Synthesizer”
07 “University Hill”
08 “Have We Met”
09 “The Man In Black’s Blues”
10 “foolssong”
TOUR DATES:
02/21 Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater*
02/22 San Francisco, CA @ August Hall*
02/23 Los Angeles, CA @ Regent Theater*
02/24 Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress*
02/26 Austin, TX @ The Mohawk*
02/27 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada*
02/28 Lawrence, KS @ Granada Theater*
02/29 St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club*
03/01 Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall*
03/02 Detroit, MI @ Deluxx Fluxx*
03/04 Toronto, ON @ Opera House**
03/05 Montreal, QC @ Theatre Fairmount**
03/06 Boston, MA @ The Sinclair**
03/07 New York, NY @ Brooklyn Steel**
03/08 Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts**
03/09 Washington, DC @ Black Cat**
03/11 Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle**
03/12 Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West**
03/13 Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge**
03/14 St. Louis, MO @ Blueberry Hill**
03/15 Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room**
03/16 Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater**
03/17 Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge**
03/19 Seattle, WA @ Neumos**
03/20 Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre**
*w/Eleanor Freidbeger
** w/Nap Eyes