The next time I hear someone wax on about how Lady Gaga is some sort of innovator or icon, I’m grinding this album into her ear until she gets a clue.

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The Echoplex tends to play up its murkiness well—generally, it’s too dark to tell what color your drink is, or if your date is male, or human. Tonight’s show was so dark that Dan Bejar, a.k.a. Destroyer, appeared to be candlelit. It fit. I can’t say for certain what the primary objective was in seating the mostly crazy-eyed and adoring audience in rows right up against the stage. The result was a wonderful, docile sort of intimacy, which was exponentially multiplied by Bejar’s solo performance—he played acoustic versions of songs that on record are often as densely orchestral as this sort of (indie rock? hooky Bowie-esque Spanish guitar balladry? “European Blues,” as he calls it?) music gets.

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