The latest offering from Edinburgh based purveyors of weird and eccentric audio curiosities, Bearsuit Records, comes from the enigmatically titled Eamon the Destroyer, and it's his most accessible release to date.
The latest offering from Edinburgh based purveyors of weird and eccentric audio curiosities, Bearsuit Records, is another release from the enigmatically titled Eamon the Destroyer (shortened to EtD for the sake of brevity). His new album, The Maker’s Quit, still carries all of EtD’s signature weirdness, but is also his most accessible album to date and a great jumping off point for people who want to dip their toes into Bearsuit’s stable of artistic peculiarity.
EtD previously brought us A Small Blue Car (2021) and We’ll Be Piranhas (2023) as well as a couple of EPs along the way, including the rather excellent acoustic Radio Sessions earlier this year. It’s difficult to put a stamp on exactly what genre his work would fall into. Where would you look for him if you were perusing the shelves of your local record store? Calling his work “pop” would be doing it a disservice, and “alternative” feels like a cop-out. You never quite know what you’re going to get with an EtD record, only that it’s going to be wild, weird and experimental.
“EtD veers from moments that put in mind other well-known Scottish artists like Edwin Collins and Arab Strap to something jazzy and upbeat and almost pastoral.”
The Maker’s Quit continues EtD’s musical evolution. There’s electronica in there, rubbing shoulders with dance and folk. EtD veers from moments that put in mind other well-known Scottish artists like Edwin Collins and Arab Strap to something jazzy and upbeat and almost pastoral, fit for sound tracking, a show about moving to the country. At least for a moment. The songs are often patchwork, disjointed affairs, where verse and chorus barely have much in common at all, even when there is a clear distinction between the two or anything approaching a conventional song structure.
‘The Ocean’ is probably the single most Eamon the Destroyer track on this 8 track album. A sombre, melancholic opening joined by Eamon’s soft, almost spoken-word lyrics and acoustic guitar before the song pauses…and then suddenly slams into something altogether more demanding and industrial before finally trailing off into what sounds like the sounds of a baby sleeping. In contrast, we have ‘Firefly in the Leg’, a positively upbeat, bubblegum pop ditty if it was recorded by way of Warren Ellis and Nick Cave.
EtD’s debut, A Small Blue Car, remains the best thing he’s ever put out, but The Maker’s Quit is by no means a downgrade or a step back. As eclectic and melancholic as ever while still simultaneously managing to be an easier listen than some of Bearsuit’s other offerings, it’s an excellent place to start for anyone who wants to broaden their musical horizons and step into the stranger side of music. We’ve always had “outsider artists”, and that’s what Bearsuit Records does. It gives outsider musicians like Eamon the Destroyer a place to call home.