Foggy Notions presents
DIRTY PROJECTORS
Whelan’s, Wednesday September 16th, 8pm
& special guest: tUnE-YaRdS (4AD)
Tickets on sale NOW from www.tickets.ie, City Discs, WAV box office [lo-call 1890 200 078] & Ticketmaster outlets nationwide.
Dirty Projectors return to Ireland with an expanded 6-piece line-up following the release of their widely acclaimed fifth album Bitte Orca on Domino Records, as well as collaborations with Bjork, David Byrne and U.S. tour support with TV On The Radio. The new album received an incredible 9.2 review on Pitchfork.
“Bitte Orca is one of the more purely enjoyable indie-rock records in an awfully long time; remarkable by any means, but even moreso considering the source. It's breezy without a hint of slightness, tuneful but with its fair share of tumult, concise and inventive and replayable and plain old fun. It is the sound of Longstreth the composer and Longstreth the pop songwriter finally settling on a few things together after years of tug-of-war between the two,” writes reviewer Paul Thompson.
In 2002 David Longstreth released The Graceful Fallen Mango under his own name. A year later, The Glad Fact reintroduced his experimental rock project as "Dirty Projectors,” a moniker he's kept longer than any particular lineup. Longstreth and a revolving cast of collaborators have since released four full lengths, a compilation of cassettes, and three EPs: From The Getty Address’s electro-infused Don Henley-themed opera to Rise Above's rewriting of Black Flag's Damaged from memory (grafting of African musical ideas to punk rock fantasies), Longstreth has, in the words of Battles’ Tyondai Braxton, “forged his own path with authority and an inexhaustible urgency.”
Album five, Bitte Orca, is Dirty Projectors’ most complete effort to date. Reprising the lineup of Amber Coffman (vocals, guitar), Angel Deradoorian (vocals, keyboard, guitar, bass), and drummer Brian Mcomber from 2007’s Rise Above, Bitte Orca also adds bassist Nat Baldwin and vocalist Haley Dekle to the fold, resulting in what sounds like Dirty Projectors' first fully collaborative band record. In fact, it features the first solo vocal pieces by Coffman (R&B anthem "Stillness Is The Move") and Deradoorian (elegantly spare, stringed "Two Doves"). Each was written especially for the singer, representing her specific temperament.
It’s Dirty Projectors at their most seductive and elusive. You wouldn’t be faulted for thinking the title’s about whales, but it’s about the sound of the words, a little bit sweet, a little bit barbed, like “Please Please Me.” The cover featuring Coffman and Deradoorian indeed references 2004’s Slaves' Graves & Ballads, but at the same time it reintroduces a literalized Dirty Projection, the band’s emblem, thereby giving the entire oeuvre a connecting thread. Unlike past releases, Bitte Orca can't be broken down into a conceptual statement. Instead of following a narrative or historical map, Longstreth used individual songs as the units of measure, making sure each was strong enough to stand on its own terms. And it works. From curtain-raising opener "Cannibal Resource" to "Temecula Sunrise”’s metal-jazz spin on sunny ‘70s rock, and "Useful Chamber"'s minimal electronics, ornate vocal harmonies, and Beefheart does Graceland instrumentation, Bitte Orca contains the Projectors' best songs to date.
For instance, with its trills and positive “I know we’ll make it” storyline, Coffman's solo turn “Stillness Is The Move,” is ready for popular hip-hop radio, making the same gesture as recent work by Lil Wayne and Kanye West, albeit from the opposite side of culture.
Bitte Orca is a big album with disparate blockbuster references. Vampire Weekend frontman (and onetime Dirty Projector) Ezra Koeing gets it: “I hear big riffs that make me think of classic rock, so I think, ‘Is this Led Zeppelin deconstructed?’ I hear folk guitar picking and gorgeous strings, so I think, ‘Is this 60’s folk-pop re-imagined?’ But, as is usually the case, my lame attempts at categorization fade away and soon all I can hear is Dirty Projectors ... It’s not Physical Graffiti for 2K9; it’s 2K9’s Physical Graffiti.”
Bitte Orca's idiosyncratically complex, and sincere take on popular music is reminiscent of David Byrne with whom Dirty Projectors collaborated on “Knotty Pine" for the compilation Dark Was The Night.
Really, in many ways, Longstreth could be viewed as this generation's answer to Byrne, a distinctive torchbearer of labyrinthine song arrangements that go down easy. In that vein, it's fitting to give the Talking Head the final effusive word: "OMG this record is incredible!... Holy shit -- a quantum leap forwards and sideways at the same time. My new favorite record. I know this is all too gushy. Whatever, congratulations." – BRANDON STOSUY 2009
DIRTY PROJECTORS
Whelan’s, Wednesday September 16th, 8pm
& special guest: tUnE-YaRdS (4AD)
Tickets on sale NOW from www.tickets.ie, City Discs, WAV box office [lo-call 1890 200 078] & Ticketmaster outlets nationwide.
Dirty Projectors return to Ireland with an expanded 6-piece line-up following the release of their widely acclaimed fifth album Bitte Orca on Domino Records, as well as collaborations with Bjork, David Byrne and U.S. tour support with TV On The Radio. The new album received an incredible 9.2 review on Pitchfork.
“Bitte Orca is one of the more purely enjoyable indie-rock records in an awfully long time; remarkable by any means, but even moreso considering the source. It's breezy without a hint of slightness, tuneful but with its fair share of tumult, concise and inventive and replayable and plain old fun. It is the sound of Longstreth the composer and Longstreth the pop songwriter finally settling on a few things together after years of tug-of-war between the two,” writes reviewer Paul Thompson.
In 2002 David Longstreth released The Graceful Fallen Mango under his own name. A year later, The Glad Fact reintroduced his experimental rock project as "Dirty Projectors,” a moniker he's kept longer than any particular lineup. Longstreth and a revolving cast of collaborators have since released four full lengths, a compilation of cassettes, and three EPs: From The Getty Address’s electro-infused Don Henley-themed opera to Rise Above's rewriting of Black Flag's Damaged from memory (grafting of African musical ideas to punk rock fantasies), Longstreth has, in the words of Battles’ Tyondai Braxton, “forged his own path with authority and an inexhaustible urgency.”
Album five, Bitte Orca, is Dirty Projectors’ most complete effort to date. Reprising the lineup of Amber Coffman (vocals, guitar), Angel Deradoorian (vocals, keyboard, guitar, bass), and drummer Brian Mcomber from 2007’s Rise Above, Bitte Orca also adds bassist Nat Baldwin and vocalist Haley Dekle to the fold, resulting in what sounds like Dirty Projectors' first fully collaborative band record. In fact, it features the first solo vocal pieces by Coffman (R&B anthem "Stillness Is The Move") and Deradoorian (elegantly spare, stringed "Two Doves"). Each was written especially for the singer, representing her specific temperament.
It’s Dirty Projectors at their most seductive and elusive. You wouldn’t be faulted for thinking the title’s about whales, but it’s about the sound of the words, a little bit sweet, a little bit barbed, like “Please Please Me.” The cover featuring Coffman and Deradoorian indeed references 2004’s Slaves' Graves & Ballads, but at the same time it reintroduces a literalized Dirty Projection, the band’s emblem, thereby giving the entire oeuvre a connecting thread. Unlike past releases, Bitte Orca can't be broken down into a conceptual statement. Instead of following a narrative or historical map, Longstreth used individual songs as the units of measure, making sure each was strong enough to stand on its own terms. And it works. From curtain-raising opener "Cannibal Resource" to "Temecula Sunrise”’s metal-jazz spin on sunny ‘70s rock, and "Useful Chamber"'s minimal electronics, ornate vocal harmonies, and Beefheart does Graceland instrumentation, Bitte Orca contains the Projectors' best songs to date.
For instance, with its trills and positive “I know we’ll make it” storyline, Coffman's solo turn “Stillness Is The Move,” is ready for popular hip-hop radio, making the same gesture as recent work by Lil Wayne and Kanye West, albeit from the opposite side of culture.
Bitte Orca is a big album with disparate blockbuster references. Vampire Weekend frontman (and onetime Dirty Projector) Ezra Koeing gets it: “I hear big riffs that make me think of classic rock, so I think, ‘Is this Led Zeppelin deconstructed?’ I hear folk guitar picking and gorgeous strings, so I think, ‘Is this 60’s folk-pop re-imagined?’ But, as is usually the case, my lame attempts at categorization fade away and soon all I can hear is Dirty Projectors ... It’s not Physical Graffiti for 2K9; it’s 2K9’s Physical Graffiti.”
Bitte Orca's idiosyncratically complex, and sincere take on popular music is reminiscent of David Byrne with whom Dirty Projectors collaborated on “Knotty Pine" for the compilation Dark Was The Night.
Really, in many ways, Longstreth could be viewed as this generation's answer to Byrne, a distinctive torchbearer of labyrinthine song arrangements that go down easy. In that vein, it's fitting to give the Talking Head the final effusive word: "OMG this record is incredible!... Holy shit -- a quantum leap forwards and sideways at the same time. My new favorite record. I know this is all too gushy. Whatever, congratulations." – BRANDON STOSUY 2009
