[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Your Blood” – Destroyer
(Words/music: Dan Bejar, available on Destroyer’s Rubies, Merge Records 2006)

To those of you who don’t know Dan Bejar’s music, I’ll tell you that this song sounds a lot different than “‘Your Blood’ by Destroyer” might have sounded were I to describe the song based solely on the two names involved.  Somehow, I imagine Bejar likes that sort of misdirection; his songs defy typical genre labels, calling for the even less-telling adjectives “quirky” and “eccentric.”  Whether composing mini pop-suites complete with MIDI synthesizers or twisting the pure pop of the New Pornographers a couple times each album (and his contributions are always among my favorites), Bejar has a way of making these less-than-likely decisions sound catchy.  Against whatever odds one might place on a pop song successfully referencing several of Camus’ works, Bejar succeeds.

“Your Blood” may as well be called “The Freewheeling Dan Bejar,” as it glides across a crisp shuffle with tinkling piano and bluesy guitar fills.  I imagine Bejar, complete with his giant poof of hair, walking down the same cold Greenwich Village street captured in that Dylan album, quietly singing along to his companion in that tunefully nasally tone he uses so well on this track.  The voice merits a Dylan comparison not because he specifically sounds like Dylan (he doesn’t to me at least) but because it may put some off initially.  However, just like Dylan, Bejar knows how to use his vocal capacity – not to sing arias, but rather to open a valve and let his subconscious mind flow freely, tangling itself with these dense melodic threads.  Usually, it’s these melodic knots that make Bejar’s songs so interesting, but here all of the threads braid together naturally.  Where some of his other songs require some patience, “Your Blood” satisfies immediately.  Sure, there are different sounds to appreciate each time (recently it’s the burst of guitar accompanying the “Tabitha takes another stab” line), but few of his songs are both immediately and continually gratifying.

More on Destroyer: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm