Artist Rating: 96%
Peak Album Score: 25
Average Album Score: 23
Development Score: 10
- Okay, many of the Projectors' great elements were there from the start, but Longstreth's ability to tie it all together really grew into itself, and, more importantly, he found out how to make it appealing and challenging at once. Plus, the addition and centralization of Angel and Amber was a big help.
Originality Score: 10
- What genre are these guys? Gregorian chant-soul-Americana-prog rock-African-modern classical?
Personal Bias Score: 28
- Okay, at the bottom of it the music is pretty heady most of the time. But come on, I'm a huge Talking Heads and Yes fan; do you think I care? Plus, listen to "Two Doves" and tell me you aren't stirred.
The Glad Fact (2003) - 74%
I ought to establish that my introduction to (and impetus to review) this band was entirely the fabulous Bitte Orca, and a common criticism I'd read about it was that it was simply 'too self-consciously clever to actually enjoy'. Basically, too hipster. I found the description totally wrong, but the more I listen to The Glad Fact, the more I think the description was only misplaced - it belongs here. Sometimes, the edginess works quite well - the opening title track goes on about not much for two minutes before breaking into a chorus of "Here I go again"s which works quite well (mostly due to a nice little chord change at the turnaround. But most of the time, the intentional ugliness and repetition isn't really backed by enough cool ideas, and the result is little more than a mess. Interestingly, Dave Longstreth is at his best here when he comes off as genuine and (relatively) unpretentious - "Like Fake Blood in Crisp October" is a lovely ballad orchestrated by Longstreth's voice at its shaky best crooning some neat-sounding lines ("that's not a monument, it's a grave"), and a somewhat overdriven electric guitar on its own; and "Two Brown Finches" is... sort of the same thing, but on acoustic. His vocal performance on that one is particularly good. I also like "Naked We Made It", but it might just appeal to my fetish for polymeters. I appreciate the nod, at least, and the prior knowledge that Longstreth would figure out how to make it meaningful eventually.
- Highlights: "Like Fake Blood in Crisp October", "Two Brown Finches", "Naked We Made It"
Morning Better Last! (2003) - 72%
Wow, this album makes even less sense than the last one! 23 very short tracks long, Morning Better Last! is a mess of 'ideas' that pretty much remain unfinished here. Though to call them ideas may be generous, too. Songs are pretty much either lo-fi folky pastiches with shaky voice but no hooks or bizarre experiments in modern-classical-african music, and neither strike me as memorable at all. In fact, I'll pull a Dave Longstreth and end things rather abru
- Highlights: "Twenty-Foot Stalks", "Fake Folks", "Like Once-Heated Milk", "O! You Hungering Infants"
Slaves' Graves and Ballads (2004) - 85%
Whoa, well this is way better. Perhaps not any less weird, but much more coherent. Which is strange, because it's actually a compilation of two EPs from 2004 (Slaves' Graves and Ballads, naturally). But it works in a nice way, actually, since the former features a ten-piece orchestra accompanying Dave's voice-and-guitar thang, while the latter does without any accompaniment at all... so in the end you get kind of the grandiose set and the 'intimate' set, and everything works out. But it wouldn't work out if the music sucked, which it doesn't! That said, it's still pretty out there - the opening "Somberly, Kimberly" features an angry tympani and an arpeggiating marimba, playing in hemiola while Dave (I'm assuming) reads poetry while he overdubs himself singing some harmonies. It's weird as fuck, but pretty cool. Similarly, "On the Beach" does cool things with the little orchestra, and "(Throw On) The Hazard Lights" has this great Romantic turnaround (augmented sixth chord-V7, I think?) and several ugly chords in the verse (if one can call it that), but somehow it all hangs together in a pretty cool way. My favorites on the intimate side are "Your Light Is Turning Green", which has some wonderfully spastic guitar playing after each chorus, and a cool sliding harmony part at all times; and "This Weather", which features trumpets in just the right place, and not one but two beautiful turnarounds in the chorus (both on the title line - "this weather I'm underrrrr"), and the second time Dave's voice descends to the flat-7, and oh it's so beautiful. The closing "Since I Opened" is spare, and ends with this classic buildup on "heart", repeated in intervals of dissonant guitar patterns. No one said it was pretty, but this is one interesting album anyway.
- Highlights: "Somberly, Kimberly", "On the Beach", "(Throw On) The Hazard Lights", "Your Light Is Turning Green", "This Weather"
The Getty Address (2005) - 80%
This album might be even weirder than The Glad Fact, but it pulls it off a good deal better and more consistently. Of course, there's times that I find myself thinking, "Why am I listening to this? Why does this exist?" ...but they're minimal. The highlights here, too, are starting to get really cool. The opening "I Sit on the Ridge at Dusk" takes forever to get anywhere, but in a way that's kind of the thrill. For the first two minutes, it's dominated by this gregorian chant-style thing, which is alternately underpinned by a rock beat and crazy tribal-sounding percussion. Ultimately, it gives way to a rubato ballad sung solo by Longstreth, which works fabulously, and then weaves in and out of the gregorian thing. Cool shit! Other highlights include "Not Having Found", which begins with a loop of a thumping low string instrument, soon layered by obviously electronically-tampered vocals, and ultimately underpinned by a rock beat, which is so cool I can hardly describe it. Longstreth comes in with this mantra, "maybe the truth in searching is not having found", and it all (the music, that is) makes sense. "Time Birthed Spilled Blood" is similarly unsure of whether it's a strange compilation of modern classical snippets or a rock song, to great effect (I'm pretty sure Angel Deradoorian sings on this one too). At the end, then, "Drilling Profitably" is... I feel like I can just describe every song the say way. This album's genre is some blend between... Americana-folk, soul, contempoary classical, and medieval chant. Go figure that one out! Of course, it's easy to get lost, and I'd hardly blame the listener for that, but there is certainly merit to be found in giving this one enough solitary listens to make it enjoyable.
- Highlights: "I Sit on the Ridge at Dusk", "Not Having Found", "Time Birthed Spilled Blood", "Drilling Profitably"
New Attitude (2006) - 82%
Short as this is, it's closer, in a lot of ways, to Rise Above and Bitte Orca than anything before. Yeah, the opening "Fucked for Life" sounds a hell of a lot like the backup vocal-and-drums tracks of most full-fledged DP tracks, and it's AWESOME. Voices soar on that shrill "aaaaaaaah", percussion is a tinge African, and everything is good in the world. But heck, "Likeness of Uncles" is everything the last sequence of albums ever wanted to be - swelling string sections and little else until Dave's shrill voice comes in.. but goddamn, it's beautiful. "Two Sheep Asleep" stomps around in a raw-as-fuck way, and I enjoy it all the way. "Two Young Sheeps" is kind of a mess, but grooves a ton in the main section anyway, and I can deal with 8 minutes of neat groovin' anyday. This isn't close to perfection, but it's really the first time the DP's potential is evident at all.
- Highlights: "Fucked for Life", "Two Sheep Asleep", "Likeness of Uncles"
Rise Above (2007) - 92%
Whoa! Serious improvement! So this entire album is consistently enjoyable, consistently weird... but also catchy. Longstreth is really starting to bring out the talents of his female bandmates, showering pieces in delightful (often very odd) vocal harmonies. His voice is more consistent, too. But at the bottom of it, these songs are just.. better songs than he had before. The opening "What I See" is certainly one of the cooler things ever, adorning a sorta funky 4/4 groove with these borderline-comically rhythmically varying harmony vocals... but that sort of becomes what this band is about, right? Naturally. The melodies are there, the energy is there, all good! "Police Story" sort of recalls the meandering folky-Longstreth-whine-features of old (which I liked well, by the way), except this time the harmonies add a TOTALLY new dimension to it. Also, Longstreth's melodies are winding in a way reminiscent more of some Bach choral work than anything else. Other favorites include the title track, a stompin' little rocker with.. basically the same features as I've described before. This band is so idiosyncratic! Ah, pretty much every song is fabulous, give it a whirl.
- Highlights: "What I See", "No More", "Thirsty and Miserable", "Police Story", "Rise Above", "Untitled"
Bitte Orca (2009) - 100%
Well, I never thought this would happen, but Bitte Orca grows on you like nothing else I've ever heard. This album, in its entirety, was my introduction to this band, and in fact, it was kind of hard to want to listen to any earlier albums (though I'm glad I did; Rise Above is delightful!) when Bitte Orca was an option instead. Should you still hear it first? Yes, absolutely. This thing is masterful to a totally new degree. The songs aren't just listenable and, incidentally, also very complex and thoughtful, as was previously the case. No, the songs are extraordinarily memorable, and yet perhaps complexer. This time around, the twists and bends are just as hooky as the brilliant chord changes, the fantastically memorable vocal melodies.. damn. The opening "Cannibal Resource", for instance. Shit, just the guitar intro, cleverly phased through a rather odd effect (tremolo and wah?), is thrilling. The drums pop right in with Longstreth's voice, pleasantly and very memorably, and then Angel and Amber drop in with these wacky harmonies, and man, they're so cool! "Temecula Sunrise" is nearly impossible to follow (I mean, even just the guitar part, which Longstreth somehow sings while playing), but somehow extraordinarily memorable as well. It's best hooks are these tricky rhythmic shifts, which literally never get old for me - the sudden change of feel to triplets in the middle of the chorus, the shift back, and these short sequences of measures where the drums play 2/4 over everything else in 12/8, and it's just.. so thrilling, jolting, cheerful, etc. "Stillness Is the Move" could almost just be a rock-soul hit written by anyone, except that it's rather weird (melodically, arrangement-wise), but it could hardly be catchier. Amber destroys the vocals, too, with these great high notes in the chorus and post-chorus "oh oh" segment. Angel takes a solo lead on "Two Doves" (I'm pretty sure Longstreth intended to showcase the two on this album, also given that he put their faces on the cover), possibly my favorite track in the group's catalogue - a delightful acoustic-pickin' ballad with some fresh strings atop, lovely biblically-inspired lyrics, Angel's shiver-inducing, dry voice, and great melodies all around. I don't need to go on forever, but when I first heard this album - this, above even all of Radiohead's work- I felt real hope for the idea of tangible, substantial, continued progress (hence 'progressive' rock, yeah?) in rock music. Thank you, Dirty Projectors, for keeping the tradition alive.
- Highlights: "Cannibal Resource", "Temecula Sunrise", "Stillness Is the Move", "Two Doves", "Useful Chamber", "No Intention"
Mount Wittenberg Orca (2010) - 93%
For some reason I never bothered checking this album out until very recently. Maybe its being a collaborative effort (with Björk), as well as an EP, suggested to me that's it's throwaway or not worth familiarizing myself with. Boy, was that wrong! This EP is the logical extreme of Bitte Orca, featuring Angel, Amber and Haley to an all-consuming level. If a big draw to the DPs has been the swell of those tasty female vocals, this EP ought to be your dream-come-true. The opening "Ocean" is an indicator: two minutes of chilling, unaccompanied vocal slides, the two voices flying magically into very wide harmonies. "On and Every Onward", with Björk singing some comically idiosyncratic lead vocals, is so dang ecstatic I can hardly handle it. "When the World Comes to an End", then, features Dave for the first time, and the song is a little underdeveloped, but the melodies still take lovely turns, as it seems this guy just can't do wrong anymore. "Beautiful Mother" marches along, deviating in this hilarious chorus, in which the vocalists complicate the melody's rhythm three times, finally singing "listen to our new song", and bursting into an unexpectedly loud and quick chorus of "ah"s reminiscent of "Remade Horizon" or "Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie". The EP coheres unusually well for these guys, and though perhaps the near-complete lack of percussion and guitar leaves it dynamically, its brevity might make up for that a lot. I can handle 20 minutes of vocal-based music at once, anyway.
- Highlights: "Ocean", "On and Ever Onward", "Beautiful Mother"
Swing Lo Magellan (2012) - 96%
Perhaps I should give the album a bit more time to grow on me to the heights that its predecessor did, but there's no doubt that this is in the same league. At first impression, it may seem a bit timid and pale next to the crashing, unapologetic sprawl of Bitte Orca, but the songs unfold themselves with each listen, and it's clear that Dave is as good, if not better a songwriter than he was before. If nothing else, it's impressive that he could sit down and write something like "Impregnable Question", pretty much as simple and unassuming a love song as possible (despite the title), with a lovely little melody and straightforward, moving lyrics ("What is mine is yours, in happiness and in strife / You're my love, and I want you in my life"). Of course, the songs that are just so Dirty Projectors are still here and better than ever: "About to Die" grooves real hard over a jittery drumbeat, with explosive harmonies in the chorus, and Longstreth showing off his newfound vocal chops in the soulful coda, and "Just from Chevron" pinning down lanky guitar lines with interlocked handclapping, climaxing subtly in the chorus with Dave's grunting ("eeughh (sp)! Don't think I won't try, when I close my eyes; wherever the people will drive, eeeuuughhh that's where I will survive"). "The Socialites" is somewhat reminiscent of "Two Doves", musically, only with crazy beats, but the tone of the lyrics is far more observational and reflective, where the other is grandiose and self-declarative. In fact, that comparison generally characterizes the two albums. The big highlight for me is the opening "Offspring Are Blank", a strange juxtaposition of r'n'b beats with the DP's classic brand of choral work, and a chorus straight from Kurt Cobain's book, all layered with one of Dave's best vocal performances ever. On a similar level is "See What She Seeing", which took a while to sink in, but builds beautifully, with woozy synths and guitars trading off chord changes over a rather ridiculous electronic beat. The vocal melody is top-notch, culminating in the rising call-and-response pre-chorus ("whose hair is whippin - wild and free") and the ecstatic declaration of the title as chorus (get a load of those "ee-yeeahhh"s á la Lil Jon!). The single we've known for months now, "Gun Has No Trigger", is another big highlight, though again it's a bit subtle. In fact, it's probably the most minimalist song Dave has put out, featuring no guitar, very little (but tasteful) bass work, an unchanging hip-hop beat, and beautiful-but-subdued harmonies in the backdrop, grounding Dave's expressive and winding vocal delivery. Dave himself said this is best song he's ever written, due to the way the lyrics lock-in full swing with the music, and the truth of that statement really reveals itself with closer listens - the incredibly well-executed crescendos to the title-chorus are chilling. The closing "Irresponsible Tune" is something of a departure (sounding not unlike certain tracks on The Glad Fact and Slaves' Graves and Ballads), and a self-reflection, riddled with lyrics about songwriting itself, and the world as Mr. Longstreth sees it. Straightforward and nearly-banal as the lyrics may be, it gets away with that in the same way John Lennon's minimalist, expressive pieces did. In fact, influences like John Lennon are worn all over this album, and I don't mean that to say that Dave's a ripoff artist - far from it. Till now, it's been hard to peg any influences in the group's music, as if he doesn't really listen to any music but what's in his head. With Swing Lo Magellan, it seems Dirty Projectors are finally sitting back and letting things come to them, and boy, does it work.
- Highlights: "Offspring Are Blank", "About to Die", "Gun Has No Trigger", "Just from Chevron", "See What She Seeing", "The Socialites"
The Glad Fact (2003) - 74%
I ought to establish that my introduction to (and impetus to review) this band was entirely the fabulous Bitte Orca, and a common criticism I'd read about it was that it was simply 'too self-consciously clever to actually enjoy'. Basically, too hipster. I found the description totally wrong, but the more I listen to The Glad Fact, the more I think the description was only misplaced - it belongs here. Sometimes, the edginess works quite well - the opening title track goes on about not much for two minutes before breaking into a chorus of "Here I go again"s which works quite well (mostly due to a nice little chord change at the turnaround. But most of the time, the intentional ugliness and repetition isn't really backed by enough cool ideas, and the result is little more than a mess. Interestingly, Dave Longstreth is at his best here when he comes off as genuine and (relatively) unpretentious - "Like Fake Blood in Crisp October" is a lovely ballad orchestrated by Longstreth's voice at its shaky best crooning some neat-sounding lines ("that's not a monument, it's a grave"), and a somewhat overdriven electric guitar on its own; and "Two Brown Finches" is... sort of the same thing, but on acoustic. His vocal performance on that one is particularly good. I also like "Naked We Made It", but it might just appeal to my fetish for polymeters. I appreciate the nod, at least, and the prior knowledge that Longstreth would figure out how to make it meaningful eventually.
- Highlights: "Like Fake Blood in Crisp October", "Two Brown Finches", "Naked We Made It"
Morning Better Last! (2003) - 72%
Wow, this album makes even less sense than the last one! 23 very short tracks long, Morning Better Last! is a mess of 'ideas' that pretty much remain unfinished here. Though to call them ideas may be generous, too. Songs are pretty much either lo-fi folky pastiches with shaky voice but no hooks or bizarre experiments in modern-classical-african music, and neither strike me as memorable at all. In fact, I'll pull a Dave Longstreth and end things rather abru
- Highlights: "Twenty-Foot Stalks", "Fake Folks", "Like Once-Heated Milk", "O! You Hungering Infants"
Slaves' Graves and Ballads (2004) - 85%
Whoa, well this is way better. Perhaps not any less weird, but much more coherent. Which is strange, because it's actually a compilation of two EPs from 2004 (Slaves' Graves and Ballads, naturally). But it works in a nice way, actually, since the former features a ten-piece orchestra accompanying Dave's voice-and-guitar thang, while the latter does without any accompaniment at all... so in the end you get kind of the grandiose set and the 'intimate' set, and everything works out. But it wouldn't work out if the music sucked, which it doesn't! That said, it's still pretty out there - the opening "Somberly, Kimberly" features an angry tympani and an arpeggiating marimba, playing in hemiola while Dave (I'm assuming) reads poetry while he overdubs himself singing some harmonies. It's weird as fuck, but pretty cool. Similarly, "On the Beach" does cool things with the little orchestra, and "(Throw On) The Hazard Lights" has this great Romantic turnaround (augmented sixth chord-V7, I think?) and several ugly chords in the verse (if one can call it that), but somehow it all hangs together in a pretty cool way. My favorites on the intimate side are "Your Light Is Turning Green", which has some wonderfully spastic guitar playing after each chorus, and a cool sliding harmony part at all times; and "This Weather", which features trumpets in just the right place, and not one but two beautiful turnarounds in the chorus (both on the title line - "this weather I'm underrrrr"), and the second time Dave's voice descends to the flat-7, and oh it's so beautiful. The closing "Since I Opened" is spare, and ends with this classic buildup on "heart", repeated in intervals of dissonant guitar patterns. No one said it was pretty, but this is one interesting album anyway.
- Highlights: "Somberly, Kimberly", "On the Beach", "(Throw On) The Hazard Lights", "Your Light Is Turning Green", "This Weather"
The Getty Address (2005) - 80%
This album might be even weirder than The Glad Fact, but it pulls it off a good deal better and more consistently. Of course, there's times that I find myself thinking, "Why am I listening to this? Why does this exist?" ...but they're minimal. The highlights here, too, are starting to get really cool. The opening "I Sit on the Ridge at Dusk" takes forever to get anywhere, but in a way that's kind of the thrill. For the first two minutes, it's dominated by this gregorian chant-style thing, which is alternately underpinned by a rock beat and crazy tribal-sounding percussion. Ultimately, it gives way to a rubato ballad sung solo by Longstreth, which works fabulously, and then weaves in and out of the gregorian thing. Cool shit! Other highlights include "Not Having Found", which begins with a loop of a thumping low string instrument, soon layered by obviously electronically-tampered vocals, and ultimately underpinned by a rock beat, which is so cool I can hardly describe it. Longstreth comes in with this mantra, "maybe the truth in searching is not having found", and it all (the music, that is) makes sense. "Time Birthed Spilled Blood" is similarly unsure of whether it's a strange compilation of modern classical snippets or a rock song, to great effect (I'm pretty sure Angel Deradoorian sings on this one too). At the end, then, "Drilling Profitably" is... I feel like I can just describe every song the say way. This album's genre is some blend between... Americana-folk, soul, contempoary classical, and medieval chant. Go figure that one out! Of course, it's easy to get lost, and I'd hardly blame the listener for that, but there is certainly merit to be found in giving this one enough solitary listens to make it enjoyable.
- Highlights: "I Sit on the Ridge at Dusk", "Not Having Found", "Time Birthed Spilled Blood", "Drilling Profitably"
New Attitude (2006) - 82%
Short as this is, it's closer, in a lot of ways, to Rise Above and Bitte Orca than anything before. Yeah, the opening "Fucked for Life" sounds a hell of a lot like the backup vocal-and-drums tracks of most full-fledged DP tracks, and it's AWESOME. Voices soar on that shrill "aaaaaaaah", percussion is a tinge African, and everything is good in the world. But heck, "Likeness of Uncles" is everything the last sequence of albums ever wanted to be - swelling string sections and little else until Dave's shrill voice comes in.. but goddamn, it's beautiful. "Two Sheep Asleep" stomps around in a raw-as-fuck way, and I enjoy it all the way. "Two Young Sheeps" is kind of a mess, but grooves a ton in the main section anyway, and I can deal with 8 minutes of neat groovin' anyday. This isn't close to perfection, but it's really the first time the DP's potential is evident at all.
- Highlights: "Fucked for Life", "Two Sheep Asleep", "Likeness of Uncles"
Rise Above (2007) - 92%
Whoa! Serious improvement! So this entire album is consistently enjoyable, consistently weird... but also catchy. Longstreth is really starting to bring out the talents of his female bandmates, showering pieces in delightful (often very odd) vocal harmonies. His voice is more consistent, too. But at the bottom of it, these songs are just.. better songs than he had before. The opening "What I See" is certainly one of the cooler things ever, adorning a sorta funky 4/4 groove with these borderline-comically rhythmically varying harmony vocals... but that sort of becomes what this band is about, right? Naturally. The melodies are there, the energy is there, all good! "Police Story" sort of recalls the meandering folky-Longstreth-whine-features of old (which I liked well, by the way), except this time the harmonies add a TOTALLY new dimension to it. Also, Longstreth's melodies are winding in a way reminiscent more of some Bach choral work than anything else. Other favorites include the title track, a stompin' little rocker with.. basically the same features as I've described before. This band is so idiosyncratic! Ah, pretty much every song is fabulous, give it a whirl.
- Highlights: "What I See", "No More", "Thirsty and Miserable", "Police Story", "Rise Above", "Untitled"
Bitte Orca (2009) - 100%
Well, I never thought this would happen, but Bitte Orca grows on you like nothing else I've ever heard. This album, in its entirety, was my introduction to this band, and in fact, it was kind of hard to want to listen to any earlier albums (though I'm glad I did; Rise Above is delightful!) when Bitte Orca was an option instead. Should you still hear it first? Yes, absolutely. This thing is masterful to a totally new degree. The songs aren't just listenable and, incidentally, also very complex and thoughtful, as was previously the case. No, the songs are extraordinarily memorable, and yet perhaps complexer. This time around, the twists and bends are just as hooky as the brilliant chord changes, the fantastically memorable vocal melodies.. damn. The opening "Cannibal Resource", for instance. Shit, just the guitar intro, cleverly phased through a rather odd effect (tremolo and wah?), is thrilling. The drums pop right in with Longstreth's voice, pleasantly and very memorably, and then Angel and Amber drop in with these wacky harmonies, and man, they're so cool! "Temecula Sunrise" is nearly impossible to follow (I mean, even just the guitar part, which Longstreth somehow sings while playing), but somehow extraordinarily memorable as well. It's best hooks are these tricky rhythmic shifts, which literally never get old for me - the sudden change of feel to triplets in the middle of the chorus, the shift back, and these short sequences of measures where the drums play 2/4 over everything else in 12/8, and it's just.. so thrilling, jolting, cheerful, etc. "Stillness Is the Move" could almost just be a rock-soul hit written by anyone, except that it's rather weird (melodically, arrangement-wise), but it could hardly be catchier. Amber destroys the vocals, too, with these great high notes in the chorus and post-chorus "oh oh" segment. Angel takes a solo lead on "Two Doves" (I'm pretty sure Longstreth intended to showcase the two on this album, also given that he put their faces on the cover), possibly my favorite track in the group's catalogue - a delightful acoustic-pickin' ballad with some fresh strings atop, lovely biblically-inspired lyrics, Angel's shiver-inducing, dry voice, and great melodies all around. I don't need to go on forever, but when I first heard this album - this, above even all of Radiohead's work- I felt real hope for the idea of tangible, substantial, continued progress (hence 'progressive' rock, yeah?) in rock music. Thank you, Dirty Projectors, for keeping the tradition alive.
- Highlights: "Cannibal Resource", "Temecula Sunrise", "Stillness Is the Move", "Two Doves", "Useful Chamber", "No Intention"
Mount Wittenberg Orca (2010) - 93%
For some reason I never bothered checking this album out until very recently. Maybe its being a collaborative effort (with Björk), as well as an EP, suggested to me that's it's throwaway or not worth familiarizing myself with. Boy, was that wrong! This EP is the logical extreme of Bitte Orca, featuring Angel, Amber and Haley to an all-consuming level. If a big draw to the DPs has been the swell of those tasty female vocals, this EP ought to be your dream-come-true. The opening "Ocean" is an indicator: two minutes of chilling, unaccompanied vocal slides, the two voices flying magically into very wide harmonies. "On and Every Onward", with Björk singing some comically idiosyncratic lead vocals, is so dang ecstatic I can hardly handle it. "When the World Comes to an End", then, features Dave for the first time, and the song is a little underdeveloped, but the melodies still take lovely turns, as it seems this guy just can't do wrong anymore. "Beautiful Mother" marches along, deviating in this hilarious chorus, in which the vocalists complicate the melody's rhythm three times, finally singing "listen to our new song", and bursting into an unexpectedly loud and quick chorus of "ah"s reminiscent of "Remade Horizon" or "Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie". The EP coheres unusually well for these guys, and though perhaps the near-complete lack of percussion and guitar leaves it dynamically, its brevity might make up for that a lot. I can handle 20 minutes of vocal-based music at once, anyway.
- Highlights: "Ocean", "On and Ever Onward", "Beautiful Mother"
Swing Lo Magellan (2012) - 96%
Perhaps I should give the album a bit more time to grow on me to the heights that its predecessor did, but there's no doubt that this is in the same league. At first impression, it may seem a bit timid and pale next to the crashing, unapologetic sprawl of Bitte Orca, but the songs unfold themselves with each listen, and it's clear that Dave is as good, if not better a songwriter than he was before. If nothing else, it's impressive that he could sit down and write something like "Impregnable Question", pretty much as simple and unassuming a love song as possible (despite the title), with a lovely little melody and straightforward, moving lyrics ("What is mine is yours, in happiness and in strife / You're my love, and I want you in my life"). Of course, the songs that are just so Dirty Projectors are still here and better than ever: "About to Die" grooves real hard over a jittery drumbeat, with explosive harmonies in the chorus, and Longstreth showing off his newfound vocal chops in the soulful coda, and "Just from Chevron" pinning down lanky guitar lines with interlocked handclapping, climaxing subtly in the chorus with Dave's grunting ("eeughh (sp)! Don't think I won't try, when I close my eyes; wherever the people will drive, eeeuuughhh that's where I will survive"). "The Socialites" is somewhat reminiscent of "Two Doves", musically, only with crazy beats, but the tone of the lyrics is far more observational and reflective, where the other is grandiose and self-declarative. In fact, that comparison generally characterizes the two albums. The big highlight for me is the opening "Offspring Are Blank", a strange juxtaposition of r'n'b beats with the DP's classic brand of choral work, and a chorus straight from Kurt Cobain's book, all layered with one of Dave's best vocal performances ever. On a similar level is "See What She Seeing", which took a while to sink in, but builds beautifully, with woozy synths and guitars trading off chord changes over a rather ridiculous electronic beat. The vocal melody is top-notch, culminating in the rising call-and-response pre-chorus ("whose hair is whippin - wild and free") and the ecstatic declaration of the title as chorus (get a load of those "ee-yeeahhh"s á la Lil Jon!). The single we've known for months now, "Gun Has No Trigger", is another big highlight, though again it's a bit subtle. In fact, it's probably the most minimalist song Dave has put out, featuring no guitar, very little (but tasteful) bass work, an unchanging hip-hop beat, and beautiful-but-subdued harmonies in the backdrop, grounding Dave's expressive and winding vocal delivery. Dave himself said this is best song he's ever written, due to the way the lyrics lock-in full swing with the music, and the truth of that statement really reveals itself with closer listens - the incredibly well-executed crescendos to the title-chorus are chilling. The closing "Irresponsible Tune" is something of a departure (sounding not unlike certain tracks on The Glad Fact and Slaves' Graves and Ballads), and a self-reflection, riddled with lyrics about songwriting itself, and the world as Mr. Longstreth sees it. Straightforward and nearly-banal as the lyrics may be, it gets away with that in the same way John Lennon's minimalist, expressive pieces did. In fact, influences like John Lennon are worn all over this album, and I don't mean that to say that Dave's a ripoff artist - far from it. Till now, it's been hard to peg any influences in the group's music, as if he doesn't really listen to any music but what's in his head. With Swing Lo Magellan, it seems Dirty Projectors are finally sitting back and letting things come to them, and boy, does it work.
- Highlights: "Offspring Are Blank", "About to Die", "Gun Has No Trigger", "Just from Chevron", "See What She Seeing", "The Socialites"
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