Album: Bitte Orca
Artist: Dirty Projectors
Born: Southbury, Connecticut
Released: June 2009
Genre: Art Rock (approaching genre-neutral)
Dirty Projectors are often attacked on two fronts: 1) Perceptions of being hipster effetes, and 2) David Longstreth's voice. That Longstreth is an Ivy League graduate, and that Dirty Projectors are associated with other Brooklyn-based indie bands, are also often used as sticks to beat them with. That their music can be overtly intellectual, often deconstructing more instinctive musical forms like punk, Afropop and R&B, is undoubtedly the case, but that for me is no reason to dislike them (Talking Heads' David Byrne and Björk, two admirers of the Dirty Projectors, married pop music and high art in much the same way). What's more important to me is the quality of the songs and the way they're communicated, and Bitte Orca is overly blessed in this department. In fact, my only gripe with the album is its preference for the word orca (it's a particular bugbear of mine that people think it's more PC to say orca -- a reference to Roman God of the underworld, Orcus -- than killer whale. What's good enough for David Attenborough is good enough for me. Rant over -- Ed). As well as the melodies and songwriting, what also impresses me about Dirty Projectors is the ambition. They were part of a trend, highlighted in Simon Reynolds' Retromania, for albums as recreations; Rise Above (2007) was a reworking (from memory) of Black Flag's Damaged (1981), while Jeffrey Lewis' 12 Crass Songs (2007) was a folk recreation of the English anarcho-punk band's "hits". In both cases, the intent was serious and a creative act in itself, giving the words and themes a new lease of life in a modern musical context.
At the time, Bitte Orca was the most accessible album the band had ever released (2012's Swing Lo Magellan is perhaps even more pop-friendly). Songs like Two Doves are beautiful slices of baroque pop, full of swirling strings and orchestration reminiscent of Joanna Newsom, but Angel Deradoorian makes the song all her own with a stunning vocal performance. Amber Coffman, Longstreth's girlfriend and the group's other key vocalist (she appears on Bitte Orca's front cover with Deradoorian), stars on Stillness Is The Move, a homage to mid-90s R&B and one of the album's highlights. In fact, the run from Cannibal Resource, which fuses Afropop and prog rock, to Two Doves is pretty breathtaking in its breadth and depth. Useful Chamber, effectively the album's title track, is a song that gives Dirty Projectors its reputation for being too "difficult". All this is forgotten though on the following track, No Intention, which again uses an African highlife guitar sound to wonderful effect and features some of Longstreth's most natural singing. Like Björk, who the band collaborated with on follow-up EP Mount Wittenburg Orca (2010), Longstreth is stretching the human voice to the outer limits of its capabilities. I'd also recommend listening to the expanded version of this album (see Spotify link below), which contains an inspired cover of Dylan's As I Went Out One Morning from his John Wesley Harding album.
Dirty Projectors are often attacked on two fronts: 1) Perceptions of being hipster effetes, and 2) David Longstreth's voice. That Longstreth is an Ivy League graduate, and that Dirty Projectors are associated with other Brooklyn-based indie bands, are also often used as sticks to beat them with. That their music can be overtly intellectual, often deconstructing more instinctive musical forms like punk, Afropop and R&B, is undoubtedly the case, but that for me is no reason to dislike them (Talking Heads' David Byrne and Björk, two admirers of the Dirty Projectors, married pop music and high art in much the same way). What's more important to me is the quality of the songs and the way they're communicated, and Bitte Orca is overly blessed in this department. In fact, my only gripe with the album is its preference for the word orca (it's a particular bugbear of mine that people think it's more PC to say orca -- a reference to Roman God of the underworld, Orcus -- than killer whale. What's good enough for David Attenborough is good enough for me. Rant over -- Ed). As well as the melodies and songwriting, what also impresses me about Dirty Projectors is the ambition. They were part of a trend, highlighted in Simon Reynolds' Retromania, for albums as recreations; Rise Above (2007) was a reworking (from memory) of Black Flag's Damaged (1981), while Jeffrey Lewis' 12 Crass Songs (2007) was a folk recreation of the English anarcho-punk band's "hits". In both cases, the intent was serious and a creative act in itself, giving the words and themes a new lease of life in a modern musical context.
At the time, Bitte Orca was the most accessible album the band had ever released (2012's Swing Lo Magellan is perhaps even more pop-friendly). Songs like Two Doves are beautiful slices of baroque pop, full of swirling strings and orchestration reminiscent of Joanna Newsom, but Angel Deradoorian makes the song all her own with a stunning vocal performance. Amber Coffman, Longstreth's girlfriend and the group's other key vocalist (she appears on Bitte Orca's front cover with Deradoorian), stars on Stillness Is The Move, a homage to mid-90s R&B and one of the album's highlights. In fact, the run from Cannibal Resource, which fuses Afropop and prog rock, to Two Doves is pretty breathtaking in its breadth and depth. Useful Chamber, effectively the album's title track, is a song that gives Dirty Projectors its reputation for being too "difficult". All this is forgotten though on the following track, No Intention, which again uses an African highlife guitar sound to wonderful effect and features some of Longstreth's most natural singing. Like Björk, who the band collaborated with on follow-up EP Mount Wittenburg Orca (2010), Longstreth is stretching the human voice to the outer limits of its capabilities. I'd also recommend listening to the expanded version of this album (see Spotify link below), which contains an inspired cover of Dylan's As I Went Out One Morning from his John Wesley Harding album.
Comments