Destroyer, Sonido Winners, and Sonido Rumba

Destroyer’s Dan Bejer made his mark upon Vancouver’s music scene in 1996 with Destroyers’ debut album “We’ll Build Them a Golden Bridge”. Comprised of 16 lo-fi recorded songs featuring un-tuned guitars, seductive melodies and handfuls of static, the folk record set the scene for future Destroyer releases and drew vocal comparisons with David Bowie. Having been requested to contribute a song to a local cassette compilation, Bejer produced a possible 20 tracks, 16 of which made it on to the cassette “Ideas for Songs” in 1997.

By this point the singer and musician’s appeal was going from strength to strength and he subsequently headed to the studio for his next release, the minimalist “City of Daughters”. Released in 1998, the record highlights Bejer’s precocious lyrics and pop melodies, and features a rhythm section for the first time. The full-length “Thief” followed in 2000 marking the band’s expansion into a quartet, and first attempt at the climatic and grandiose sound witnessed on later releases. Conceivably the last in the series preceded by “City of Daughters” and “Thief”, Destoyer’s third full-length “Streethawk: A Seduction” arrived in 2001 earning widespread critical acclaim upon release. With dense, largely indecipherable lyrics the album revels in the unknown and paved the way for the 2002 rock album “This Night”.

His most experimental to date, 2004’s “Your Blues” used MIDI instrumentation for almost the entire album, in a sound described as “European Blues”. In January 2005 the group collaborated with touring partners Frog Eyes to release the six-track EP “Notorious Lightning & Other Works”, featuring new and existing songs. A year later the guitar made a prominent return on the 2006 album “Destroyer’s Bubies”, which echoes the climatic nature of the “Streethawk” LP. The full-length “Trouble in Dreams” arrived in March 2008, followed by the EP “Bay of Pigs” in 2009, the LP “Together” in 2010, and “Kaputt” in 2011.