Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

Domino

Dirty Projectors head honcho David Longstreth is known for making albums with broad, all-encompassing concepts, but on Bitte Orca breaks with tradition somewhat by dispensing with a unifying idea, presenting instead a collection of stand-alone songs. In other respects, though, he’s stuck to the formula (if you can call it that) of bewildering musical diversity, unexpected shifts in time signature, obviously outstanding instrumental prowess and lyrical non-sequiturs.

Accordingly the album runs the gamut from twitchy art-rock (the excellent opener ‘Cannibal Resource’) to fragile acoustic ballads (‘Two Doves’) and polished, radio-friendly R‘n’B (‘Stillness Is The Move’) – the latter two showcasing the quite lovely vocals of Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian respectively. Elsewhere the stand-out ‘Useful Chamber’ sees the low-key electro hum of the verse give way to a frantic, riff-heavy chorus.

This relentless sense of adventure and genre-hopping can make for a head-spinning first few listens and, on paper, it often seems like it shouldn’t work: ‘Temecula Sunrise’ for example, combines baffling lyrics, Longstreth’s unusual yelp of a voice, intricate guitar work and myriad stop-start time shifts. That the song – and indeed the album – hangs together at all, never mind that repeated listens reveal it to be pretty fantastic, is testament to Dirty Projector’s singular vision. Neill Dougan

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DOWNLOAD: ‘CANNIBAL RESOURCE’, ‘TEMECULA SUNRISE’, ‘STILLNESS IS THE MOVE’, ‘USEFUL CHAMBER’.
FOR FANS OF: VOLCANO!, TALKING HEADS.

Issue #62 - Pretty Hip

Featuring Snow Patrol, the Top 50 Irish Albums of the Decade, Edwyn Collins, The Japanese Popstars, Hudson Mohawke and more.