Dan Bejar has always felt elusive, even when his words are crystal clear. That sense of contrasting narrative prestidigitation has marked all of his work as Destroyer, and it continues to offer shades of revelation on his new single, “Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World” — our latest glimpse into his upcoming album, Dan’s Boogie. The song recalls the pop intricacies of Roxy Music but still feels so remarkably Bejar-ian; its course is never set, its destination never confirmed. It’s not indie rock; it’s not pop music. It’s something that, quite effectively, refuses to be labelled and packaged. This is what it means to obsess over the nuance of a Destroyer song: you may never figure it out entirely but what does reveal itself will rattle your heart and your bones.
For the track’s video, he collaborated with director Sydney Hertmant and invites us to join him as he traipses through a cityscape of winding streets, parks, and gardens before resuming his usual nighttime activities.
“Me and Sydney started this off as a ‘Hydroplaning’ visualizer,” says Bejar, “dusting off her 24-year-old Canon GL2 after many dormant years. I love the grain of the picture. Then things ballooned into a full-on video. I walk around in it, trying to look Parisian, talking to the crows. Basically a day in the life of…. I shot the nighttime stuff and it is my finest hour. Sydney did the rest.“
Hermant adds: “The video is a nesting doll of visualizers that are relaxing until they are not: Enter Dan’s night footage. Dan was trying to capture the wind. He did, but not in the way he thought he did.“
Watch the clip below.
Dan’s Boogie is due out March 28 via Merge Records. Pre-order the album here. Follow Destroyer on Facebook and Instagram.
