Leslie Ken Chu

When I think of artists with Chinese and Canadian roots who continually merge cultures in their work by pushing musical boundaries, I think of Sook-Yin Lee and Gong Gong Gong 工工工. Their multi-faceted artistic expressions inspire new possibilities for creativity and social connection. They spark imagination and allow us to dream beyond borders, real or imagined, self-generating or externally imposed.

Cooperatives have always been more than a business model, they’re an experiment in how we might live, work, and create differently together. From early credit unions and newswires to listener-owned radio, the cooperative movement in so-called Canada has long offered material alternatives to top-down control and profit-first logics.

Successful artists often confess that they feel like they’re getting away with something by being able to play music, act, or tell jokes for a living. Given that Dan Bejar has been making music as Destroyer for almost 30 years, it’s timely of the Vancouver artist to release an album called Dan’s Boogie, with the operative word “boogie” referring to a hustle or scam. Accordingly, a tense wariness – paranoia, even – pervades Dan’s Boogie, Bejar’s fourteenth Destroyer full-length to date.