Dan Bejar (DESTROYER), born in Vancouver, is coming for the very first time in his 20 year long career to the Czech Republic. He is bringing his new and very successful album Poison Season, which was released last year. With his 8 men ensemble he is performing on the 22nd of June in the Lucerna Music Bar in Prague.
Dan Bejar started Destroyer as a solo home-recording project in the early to mid-nineties. Exploring and overturning genres such as glam, MIDI, yacht rock, and even underground Spanish independent artists, Bejar was proclaimed “Rock’s Exiled King” by The Fader. His is a body of work that consistently flouts convention in favor of musical leaps of faith, statements of purpose cloaked in subterfuge, and the joyous refrain of an optimist’s heart cloaked in cynicism.
During his career he released ten albums and played in bands like The New Pornographers and Swan Lake. His debut album We’ll Build Them A Golden Bridge was released in 1996. In 2011 he was nominated for the prestige award Polaris Music Price. The price won in the end the band Arcade Fire, which are on the same publisher Merge Records.
The name Detroyer is maybe irritating. Bejar said, that he wanted to give the band a name, which doesn’t say, what kind of music the band is playing. Later on he needed to explain many times, that he didn’t know about the Kiss album Destroyer. He was surprised, that no other band had this idea before and just went for it.
NPR Music’s Andy Beta wrote of Poison Season, “As is often the case in Bejar’s work, he touches upon the rock music that came before him, his whispers on Poison Season bringing to mind the likes of Bryan Ferry’s weary playboy circa Avalon, as well as Al Stewart’s gentle croon on Year Of The Cat. But Destroyer is judicious to draw from the more neglected corners of the canon, too. Certain turns of phrase bring to mind singers like Scott Walker and Harry Nilsson when they’d all but sabotaged their careers, avoiding all the concessions of pop in favor of their own muses’ peculiar paths.”
The Czech audience had already the chance to see Ryley Walker live – at the concert series Ostinato in autumn 2013. He performed with Daniel Bachman (Sacred Harp) an instrumental repertoire ala John Fahey. This was already a great experience, but now you can see him with his solo, jazz and folk repertoire. He recorded at Tompkins Square his debut collection All Kinds OF You and was straight nominated for the best album of the year 2014 from the magazine Uncut. Already in March 2015 he released on the label Dead Oceans the next album Primrose Green, which received only the best critics. He found his place between the American folk-rock and the British folk of the 70s (Davey Graham, John Matyn,…) and is one of the best in this genre. Prague is very lucky to welcome Ryley Walker as support for the Destroyer!
Tickets are available for 450 CZK (+fee) at musicbar.cz, GoOut.cz, Ticketportal, Ticketpro and Eventim. At the cash desk of the LMB are the tickets available without fee. At the door: 550 CZK.
