City of Daughters

by Destroyer

Overview

Originally released in 1998 (and reissued on Merge in 2010), City of Daughters was Dan Bejar's first foray into Destroyer mode. While it may lack the apocalyptic Ziggy Stardust panache of Streethawk: A Seduction (or to a lesser extent, Thief), it provides a wide open window to the artist's metamorphosis from bedroom bard to Dadaist-indie poet laureate. Without all of the signature Destroyer flourishes ("lie lies" "la las" and choice "guitarmonies") Bejar's clever wordplay feels even more surreal (tracks like "I Want This Cyclops" and "You Were so Cruel" point a longer finger at Syd Barrett than they do David Bowie). Like all Destroyer records, it requires more than a couple of spins to draw you in, but it rewards that patience with an endlessly inventive collection of serpentine melodies peppered with the kind of darkly funny, stream-of-consciousness refrigerator poetry that has come to define Bejar's nom de plume, and while there are a handful of cuts like "No Cease Fires! (Crimes Against the State of Our Love, Baby)", "School and the Girls Who Go There," and "Space Race" that lay the foundation for future recordings, City of Daughters is a stark town populated with hopeless eccentrics, which is probably just how Bejar likes it. ~ James Christopher Monger

Product Details

Release Date:	05/25/2018
Label:	Merge
UPC:	0673855037110
Rank:	59993

Tracks

1. Comments on the World as Will
2. No Cease Fires! (Crimes Against the State of Our Love, Baby)
3. Dark Purposes
4. Emax I
5. I Want This Cyclops
6. Loves of a Gnostic
7. Emax II
8. State of the Union
9. School, and the Girls Who Go There
10. The Space Race
11. Melanie and Jennifer and Melanie
12. War on Jazz II or How I Learned to Love the War on Jazz
13. Emax III
14. You Were So Cruel
15. Signs
16. Rereading the Marble Faun
17. Son of the Earth

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Destroyer   Primary Artist
Scott Morgan   Drums,Clarinet,Saxophone
Daniel Bejar   Guitar,Vocals,Synthesizer
John Collins   Bass,Ambience,Synthesizer

Technical Credits

Daniel Bejar   Composer
John Collins   Composer,Engineer,Producer
Lester Smolenski   Design,Illustrations