“Living in New York is like living in the internet,” says
David Longstreth, the Dirty Projectors’ prodigious composer. “Everyone
you know from every part of your life is there at one point or
another.” There is a strange, almost otherworldly significance in this
statement that Longstreth almost certainly couldn’t have intended, but
it’s chilling just the same.
When Bitte Orca leaked online, months ahead of its official
June release date, everyone—bloggers, critics, and even the most
casual listeners—became immediately attached. This group of
downloaders (presumably) includes Björk and David Byrne.
Longstreth would collaborate shortly thereafter with both: Byrne at
Radio City Music Hall, followed by the creation of a vocal-and-guitar
suite with Björk, which Longstreth composed in just 10 days for a
one-off benefit performance.
“It was a tremendous honor to collaborate both with Björk and
David,” says Longstreth. “We all learned so much from being around
those people who we really had admired artistically for years.”
So indeed both the internet (for sharing and speed of dissemination)
and New York (availability of networking) are components of Dirty
Projectors’ meteoric rise. Neither of these factors seem particularly
strange, or out of place, per se. But perhaps adding Portland into the
equation is.
“My brother went to college at Lewis and Clark. He’s an older
brother and I sort of followed him out to the West Coast a little bit,”
says Longstreth, who lived in Portland sporadically through the early
oughts. “All of [my brother’s] friends were in bands and part of the
Portland K Records crew, and a lot of those people became my
friends.”
Through these networks Longstreth met Curtis Knapp, the owner of
Marriage Records who would release one of Dirty Projectors’ early
albums, and whose roster influenced the budding Longstreth. “I feel
like it’s totally affected who I am and what kind of things I ended up
making—people like Adrian Orange and Adam Forkner… really great
people with really strong ideas.” And when it came time to record a
follow-up to 2007’s Rise Above—a conceptual re-imagining
of the Black Flag album Damaged that cracked critical
circles—Portland became the destination.
“I wanted to get the fuck out of New York for a while,” says
Longstreth. “It was gonna be summertime and we all just really wanted a
change of pace and a place that would be gorgeous—where we could
hang out in the outdoors between bouts of recording.” At that time,
Knapp invited the band to his new studio. Longstreth remembers first
seeing the room, “It was this big open space that seemed like a
metaphor for possibility, practically.” So, in turn, would become the
great Northwest.
Beginning last June, Dirty Projectors were here, off and on, for six
months, though they weren’t always cooped up in the studio. “We went up
to Mount Hood a couple times, went hiking there,” says Longstreth. “We
went out to the coast and Manzanita, went hiking there. We chilled on
the beach. We definitely got out a whole bunch.” And while most of the
music was written before arriving in Portland, Longstreth says a lot of
the lyrics came after.
The resulting record is much more airy, organic, and outdoorsy than
one would ever equate with—or perhaps create in—New York
City. Bitte Orca is an expanse of open skies whose colors flash
and swirl from light blues to deep crimson. Lyrically, it’s a
peace-loving, easy-going, communal-living, vegetable-eating, near-zen
love letter. But of course, its heart pumps with Longstreth’s ecstatic,
avant-garde compositions.
Bitte Orca is at once lush and deconstructed, gorgeous and
strange, pensive and effervescent, off-kilter and almost paradoxically
accessible. Longstreth incorporates all manner of wobbly vocal tweets,
plucky African guitars, throbbing hiphop, even a string quartet. He
also places more responsibility on the group’s trio of female
vocalists—Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian, and Haley
Dekle—who lead songs for the first time, beautifully serene even
amid the most demanding technical arrangements.
The album’s reception has nudged Dirty Projectors up into New York’s
top echelon of hip, young, genre-bending artists along with Animal
Collective and TV on the Radio (each with major releases in the last
year). As time passes it should be interesting to see how each record
wears. Dirty Projectors seem exceedingly well positioned, as
Longstreth’s compositional dexterity and theoretical prowess appear
boundless, both new and old at once. Of his generational colleagues,
Longstreth might be the only one who is regularly, and earnestly,
referred to as a “genius.” To that end, however, there’s a common
misconception needing clarification: Longstreth did graduate from the
Yale School of Music.
“There’s this wide internet meme of me as this enigmatic dropout,”
laughs Longstreth. “I think there’s a romance to that that people love
to reproduce.” But even after dispelling the myth, there’s something
confounding and radical taking place—and some of it happened
here.
“It was gonna be summertime and we all just really wanted a change
of pace and a place that would be gorgeous—where we could hang
out in the outdoors between bouts of recording.” At that same time,
Knapp invited the band to his new studio. Longstreth remembers first
seeing the room, “It was this big open space that seemed like a
metaphor for possibility, practically.” So, in turn, would become the
great Northwest.
Beginning last June, Dirty Projectors were here, off and on, for six
months, though they weren’t always cooped up in the studio. “We went up
to Mount Hood a couple times, went hiking there,” says Longstreth. “We
went out to the coast and Manzanita, went hiking there. We chilled on
the beach. We definitely got out a whole bunch.” And while most of the
music was written before arriving in Portland, Longstreth says a lot of
the lyrics came after.
The resulting record is much more airy, organic, and outdoorsy than
one would ever equate with—or perhaps create in—New York
City. Bitte Orca is an expanse of open skies whose colors flash and
swirl from light blues to deep crimson. Lyrically, it’s a peace-loving,
easy-going, communal-living, vegetable-eating, near-zen love letter.
But of course, its heart pumps with Longstreth’s ecstatic, avant-garde
compositions.
Bitte Orca is at once lush and deconstructed, gorgeous and strange,
pensive and effervescent, off-kilter and almost paradoxically
accessible. Longstreth incorporates all manners of wobbly vocal tweets,
plucky African guitars, throbbing hiphop, even a string quartet. He
also places more responsibility on the group’s trio of female
vocalists—Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian, and Haley
Dekle—who lead songs for the first time, beautifully serene even
amid the most demanding technical arrangements.
The album’s reception has nudged Dirty Projectors up into New York’s
top echelon of hip, young, genre-bending artists along with Animal
Collective and TV on the Radio (each with major releases in the last
year). As time passes it should be interesting to see how each record
wears. Dirty Projectors seem exceedingly well positioned, as
Longstreth’s compositional dexterity and theoretical prowess appear
boundless, both new and old at once. Of his generational colleagues,
Longstreth might be the only one who is regularly, and earnestly,
referred to as a “genius.” To that end, however, there’s a common
misconception needing clarification: Longstreth did graduate from Yale.
“There’s this wide internet meme of me as this enigmatic dropout,”
laughs Longstreth. “I think there’s a romance to that that people love
to reproduce.” But even after dispelling the myth, there’s something
confounding and radical taking place—and some of it happened
here.