Posts Tagged ‘ dan bejar ’

Destroyer: October 4, 2015 Webster Hall – FLAC/MP3/Streaming

October 6, 2015
By

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[photos by P Squared Photography]

With the newly-released double LP Poison Season, Dan Bejar, aka Destroyer, has absolutely outdone himself. His finest album to date, Poison Season is a lush exploration of Bejar’s psyche, the melancholia of his words a perfect compliment to the abundance of wistful, purposeful arrangements of strings and brass. But if you talk to long time fans, what impresses them most about Destroyer in 2015 is how incredible the live show has become.

This set at Webster Hall couldn’t have been better timed, coming on a Sunday night the day after Bejar’s birthday. His evident good spirits — buoyed by fans singing “Happy Birthday” in the crowd — elevated what already promised to be a memorable evening in front of a sold out crowd. Destroyer on this tour is a full eight-piece band capable of rendering even the most intricate Poison Season arrangements with beautiful detail, as Bejar swoops about the stage in his loose beige overcoat, microphone in hand. His songs, bathed in the soft rock and smooth jazz sounds of the 70s and 80s, have always existed apart from the current moment. It might be that — and the crystal-clear detail and wit of his lyrics — that makes Destroyer so memorable to fans. Rarely if ever do I see grown men singing along with the passion of teenage girls at a Dashboard Confessional show circa 2004, but that’s what Bejar inspired in more than a few pockets of this crowd. Compared to our last outing with the band, at Webster Hall in 2011, this set felt even more confident, complete and assured, with Bejar firmly in command of his vocals without the assistance of the backup singer he had last time. Poison Season is of course the star of this tour, but each night’s setlists bring gems from all over the catalog. In this case, for example: “Rubies” and “European Oils” from 2006’s Destroyer’s Rubies and of course, “Kaputt,” “Savage Night at the Opera” and “Chinatown” from 2011’s Kaputt, and “Shooting Rockets (From the Desk of Night’s Ape)” from the band’s 2008 record Trouble In Dreams.

This was one of those shows where there wasn’t a literal or figurative note out of place, as impressive a technical achievement in the live setting as the production of Poison Season is on the album. It’s hard to pick one or two moment of this over others; what mattered was the cohesion, the progression and the sense of straight-up rightness this set had with it. A band feeling their game, an adoring crowd who knows what they want and is loving getting it, and songs that either revealed new angles or rewarded those who’d studied them for years. Destroyer doesn’t tour often, making each one a treat. This particular outing continues down the East Coast and then on to the West Coast and Europe (check the dates here). However the rest of this goes, it’ll be hard to top this night in New York City.

I recorded this set with a soundboard feed from Destroyer’s FOH (please send his name if you have it) and the Webster house engineer Raphael, combined with Schoeps MK41V supercardiod microphones. The sound quality is exceptional. Enjoy!

Thanks to Merge Records and Dan Bejar for permitting this recording. 

Download the complete show: [MP3] | [FLAC]

Stream the complete show:

Destroyer
2015-10-04
Webster Hall
New York, NY USA

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by acidjack

Thanks to Merge Records and Dan Bejar

Soundboard (engineers: Raphael and [if you have Destroy engineer’s name, please send!]) + Schoeps MK41V (at SBD, DFC)>KCY>Z-PFA>>Edirol R-44>2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Adobe Audition CS 5.5 (fades, align, mix down)>Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, effects, compression)>Audacity 2.0.5 (track, amplify, balance, downsample, dither)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 1:12:34]
01 Bangkok
02 Forces From Above
03 Savage Night at the Opera
04 European Oils
05 Sun In the Sky
06 Chinatown
07 Midnight Meet the Rain
08 Shooting Rockets (From the Desk of Night’s Ape)
09 Times Square
10 Poor In Love
11 Hell
12 Kaputt
13 Dream Lover
14 [encore break]
15 Girl In A Sling
16 Rubies

If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Destroyer, like them on facebook, and buy Poison Season and their other records from Merge Records.

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Destroyer: April 3, 2011 Webster Hall – FLAC and MP3 Downloads + Streaming Songs

April 6, 2011
By

destroyer
[Photo by acidjack]

At the end of a weekend where a certain other “band’s” “farewell” show sucked up a lot of the oxygen, this set by the multi-talented Dan Bejar, aka Destroyer, was the perfect coda. As brilliant and distinct as Bejar’s musical vision is – and his 2011 release, Kaputt, is already on the “album of the year” shortlist, if the Twitter-ing masses can be believed – Bejar’s music is almost radically foreign to what else is going on in American music today. Which is to say, Kaputt isn’t really dance music, nor can it be considered “rock” of most common varieties, and neither is it some fist-pumping, amped-up hybrid of the two. Bejar’s edges are soft, his choruses delivered on a silky train of trumpet and sax trills in a moderate, almost diffident tone. If the common mode for today’s bands is a marriage of post-punk and hard dance music, 2011’s Destroyer could be, well… indie rock and smooth jazz (which I in no way mean as an insult). In front of an audience that I am guessing included a lot of people coming down from the high (emotional or otherwise) of the previous night, I imagined that giving a memorable performance would be a challenge. But Bejar has wisely outfitted himself with an eight-person band that is more than up to the challenge of turning his proggish, cerebral songs into an outstanding live performance – one that had women throwing underwear at the stage and plenty of fans screaming. The fact is, at this point, Bejar’s fans appreciate his lush, intellectual songs, and that is to their credit. This is music that rewards patience and contemplation, not slam-dancing.

As a key part of the “supergroup” The New Pornographers, Bejar is of course a master of the pop song, even in this less-obvious context; “Painter In Your Pocket” and “Song For America” could (and probably did) inspire singalongs. My favorite numbers of the night came at the end: “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker” and its beautiful intro, with a distortion squall leading into a patient flute passage before the song’s main dance beat kicked in, as well as the epic “Bay of Pigs,” which BrooklynVegan rightly identified not only as the source of the loudest singalong, but also the aforementioned underwear-tossing. Bejar seemed as relaxed throughout the set as his record’s sound implies, and why not? He has the right musicians to execute his vision, songs that are refreshingly out of place, and fans that want what he has to offer. I hope he won’t be saying “farewell” to this project any time soon.

Our new contributor hi and lo I recorded this set from the balcony immediately to the left of the soundboard with four Schoeps mics. The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Special thanks to Merge Records and Dan Bejar for granting us permission to record.

Stream the complete set

Direct download of MP3 files [HERE]

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Follow acidjack on Twitter

Destroyer
2011-04-03
Webster Hall
New York, NY USA

An acidjack master recording
Recorded by acidjack and hi and lo
Produced by acidjack

Equipment: Schoeps CMC6U/mk41>Sound Devices USBpre2+Schoeps mk4v>NBox>>Edirol R-44 [Oade Concert Mod] (24/48)
Position: Balcony, immediate left of soundboard, on clamps pointing at stacks
Mastering: 2x24bit/48kHz WAV>Audacity (mixdown, set fades, tracking, light EQ (less than -1dB cut at 160, 200, and 250Hz), amplify and balance)>FLAC ( level 8 )

Tracks [Total Time 1:14:38]
01 Intro
02 Chinatown
03 Blue Eyes
04 It’s Gonna Take An Airplane
05 [banter]
06 Downtown
07 My Favorite Year
08 Kaputt
09 3000 Flowers
10 Painter In Your Pocket
11 Suicide Demo for Kara Walker
12 [banter]
13 Song for America
14 Bay of Pigs

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Destroyer, visit their MySpace page, and purchase Kaputt and their other fine releases directly from Merge Records [HERE].

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