Destroyer

The follow-up to his critically-loved Have We Met (2020) was written largely in 2020 and recorded the following spring. The album most often finds Bejar and frequent collaborator John Collins seeking the mythic artifacts buried somewhere under the dance floor, from the glitzy spiral of “It Takes a Thief” to the Books-ian collage bliss of the title track. Initial song ideas ventured forth from disco, Art of Noise, and New Order, Bejar and Collins championing the over-the-top madcappery. “John is in his 50s, and I’m almost there, but we used to go to clubs,” Bejar laughs. “Our version may have been punk clubs, but our touchstones for the album were more true to disco.”

The first single, an intense art-pop sprawl called "Tintoretto, It's For You" (named after the 16th century Mannerist painter), delivers a taste of the fractured beauty on LABYRINTHITIS with Bejar's frenzied, dry-as-a-bone poetry coming out at a hundred miles an hour over start/stop robotic bassline & frantic synth sputters. Its tone is certainly darker than that of Have We Met, but honestly, can you blame him? “From the vocal manipulation to the layered electronics, making this record pushed us to a new place, and reaching that place felt stressful,” Bejar recalls. “But I trust that that stress is a good feeling.”

1. It’s in Your Heart Now
2. Suffer
3. June
4. All My Pretty Dresses
5. Tintoretto, It’s for You
6. Labyrinthitis
7. Eat the Wine, Drink the Bread
8. It Takes a Thief
9. The States
10. The Last Song