Bitte Orca

Performer: Dirty Projectors
Producer: David Longstreth; Nicolas Vernhes
Distributor: Alternative Dis. Alliance

Notes: Dirty Projectors: Brian McOmber, Angel Deradoorian, Amber Coffman, David Longstreth. Audio Mixers: David Longstreth; Nicolas Vernhes. The ambitious often conceptually audacious music of the Dirty Projectors can best be described as art rock writ large. But where the distancing effects deployed by similar acts lacked in the emotive qualities necessary to create truly transcendent art, the Brooklyn-based six-piece backs up dazzling technique with rare artistry and something far less tangible, even mystical, in its power to capture the imagination. BITTE ORCA, DP's fifth full-length and best album by a country mile, will likely be remembered as the group's indie breakthrough. While the album's clash of herky-jerky rhythms, chiming Afro pop-style guitars, and serpentine chamber orchestrations rest defiantly outside the indie canon, front man and songwriter Dave Longstreth's ample ability with a pop hook--unencumbered by simplistic verse-chorus structures--provides an easy entry point for the uninitiated and underlines the essential struggle at the heart of the Dirty Projectors' music: an artful balancing act between the knotty, irregular structures of the natural world and the man-made artifice of familiar pop signifiers.

Spin (p.90) - "Longstreth's prickly surface belies a bright pop center: tart, sweet, and gushing all at once." Entertainment Weekly (p.62) - "[With] a unified style that's all the more glorious for its strangeness." -- Grade: A- CMJ - "This combination of total shreddage and siren-like female vocals will captivate listeners from any horizon." Q (Magazine) (p.121) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[F]uelled by a heightened sense of drama, BITTE ORCA lurches from the semi-classical operatics of 'Stillness Is The Move' to the galloping riffs of the title track..."

The brainchild of willfully eclectic Brooklyn-based performer David Longstreth, Dirty Projectors is an act that seems to adhere only to the concept of unpredictability. While 2005's vocal-centric THE GETTY ADDRESS is purportedly a concept album about Don Henley, 2007's spare RISE ABOVE works, very loosely, from the template of Black Flag's DAMAGED. Stylistically, Longstreth also wanders here and there, with orchestral, folk, and world music all woven into his quirky sonic tapestries. With the release of their 2009 LP, BITTE ORCHA, and a lengthy feature in the New York Times, Longstreth and his cohorts moved to a new level of exposure and renown.

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