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In the 10 years since they began, his experimental art-rock troupe Dirty Projectors have written albums that almost need a pointy stick and a flipchart to be fully explained. 2005’s The Getty Address, for example, was a “glitch opera” about the life of the Eagles’ Don Henley, while 2007’s Rise Above was an attempt to cover – from memory – Black Flag’s Damaged, an album Longstreth hadn’t listened to for nearly 15 years.
Though Swing Lo Magellan’s themes are less overt, the story of Dirty Projectors’ sixth album is still irregular and intriguing. Tired of the “density” of Brooklyn, Longstreth relocated his band – minus the “on hiatus” bassist/vocalist Angel Deradoorian – to a long-abandoned house in upstate Delaware County.
The result is an album that is far less-crowded than previous works (in his own words, Longstreth’s aim here is to veer away from the “florid arrangements” of 2009’s Bitte Orca) and one that, on the whole, feels suitably bucolic.
For instance, the title track, with its gentle acoustic guitar and butterfly melody, may be the most straightforward folk song the band has ever written. Longstreth himself appears more relaxed; single Gun Has No Trigger retains his penchant for complex melody, but without going off at an agitated and inaccessible tangent.
This time around, with Deradoorian absent, it’s up to the harmonies of Amber Coffman to enhance Longstreth’s extraordinary voice. She makes particular impact on the piano-led Impregnable Question as a foil to an uncharacteristically vulnerable frontman – the line “I need you, and you are always on my mind” suggests he’s found some quiet contemplation in the countryside. She takes the mic herself for The Socialites: a sunny, out-of-town perspective on the social snobbery of the city they’ve left behind.
Of course, despite the feeling of rural serenity, there’s still room for some of Dirty Projectors’ clever-clever stuff, too. After all, only Longstreth could write a chirruping homage to a Leo Tolstoy novella, and still call it About to Die.
His imagination, it seems, has never been so fertile.
--Leonie Cooper
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Customer Reviews
The sparse clicks, empty spaced singing and muted percussion of opener "Offspring Are Blank" lure you into a false sense of security before the chorus of explosive arena rock blows the cobwebs right out your complacent ears. Dirty Projectors mischevious moment of cacophanous euphoria in this song demonstrates how cleverly they can mix abrasiveness and accessability without it feeling disjointed or incongruous in any way. Long time DP fans may miss the absent Angel Deradoorian but should feel consoled with Amber coffman's superlative contributions, she turns in a beautiful vocal performance and some insightful lyricism on "The Socialites", her sweet butter wouldn't melt style of singing in this song cleverly disguises her razor sharp diatribe to judgemental elitists.
On the title track Longstreth gets his dylan on, by rambling out a modern day folk tune which their short film Hi Custodian perfectly captures the spirit of. "Dance For You" whilst being one of my personal favourites also serves to describe the irrepressable brilliance of Swing Lo Magellan by condensing everything that makes this album so great into one song. Inventive arrangements, catchy guitar riffs, handclapped rhythms and pensively playful lyrics all flow melifluously here and it's a marvel to behold. Whether this album has managed to replace Bitte Orca as the bands crowning achievement seems like an unnecessary thing to contemplate right now as i'm still having far too much fun getting to know this gem to begin making such comparisons. One thing i will say though is that after half a dozen listens swing Lo just keeps getting better and better so at the very least it's a real possibility.
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