Included in:
-Spin's Best Albums of 2017 (#16)
-Pitchfork’s Best Rock Albums of 2017 (#19)
-Aquarium Drunkard's 2017 Year in Review
-The Manual's Best Albums of 2017
-Treble's Best Songs of 2017 (#44, "Tinseltown Swimming in Blood")
ken is available in the following formats:
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CD: Housed in a matte-finish digipak with spot ink and gloss details. Includes a 12-page booklet of lyrics and credits.
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LP: Black vinyl in a die-cut card stock sleeve plus a two-sided 11” square lyric insert, all housed in a matte-finish jacket with spot ink and gloss details. Includes digital download card.
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Deluxe LP (limited edition): Opaque yellow vinyl plus a bonus 7-inch single on black vinyl containing solo acoustic versions of the album tracks “A Light Travels Down the Catwalk” and “Stay Lost.” Package includes lyric insert and download card.
All orders come with a free Destroyer button, while supplies last.
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Of his 12th studio album and its enigmatic title, Destroyer’s Dan Bejar offers the following:
Sometime last year, I discovered that the original name for “The Wild Ones” (one of the great English-language ballads of the last 100 years or so) was “Ken.” I had an epiphany, I was physically struck by this information. In an attempt to hold on to this feeling, I decided to lift the original title of that song and use it for my own purposes. It’s unclear to me what that purpose is, or what the connection is. I was not thinking about Suede when making this record. I was thinking about the last few years of the Thatcher era. Those were the years when music first really came at me like a sickness, I had it bad. Maybe “The Wild Ones” speaks to that feeling, probably why Suede made no sense in America. I think “ken” also means “to know.”
ken was produced by Josh Wells of Black Mountain, who has been the drummer in Destroyer since 2012. The album was recorded in its entirety in the jam space/studio space that the group calls The Balloon Factory. However, unlike Poison Season, ken was not recorded as a “band” record, though everyone in the band does make an appearance.
