Talk About a Concept Album
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The Dirty Projectors, what is there to say about this band. Seemingly transforming from a one man act thanks to Dave Longstreth to a four piece band accompanied by his roommate from Yale and two rather beautiful women named Amber and Angel. Longstreth proclaims himself as the “musical director” on their myspace, but he is as active as ever in their musical performance. I saw them this summer at Pitchfork Music Festival and they played the tightest and most “studio-like” performance I saw all weekend, led front and center by Longstreth (and oh yeah, the beautiful girls too, haha). Last year the group released the critically praised “Rise Above” that turned the group from lo-fi one man act, to a band now designed around the entire group. Since then they have been quiet, but in the past week some information about a follow up album has been coming out.
“The album is related to Plaxico Burress,” says Longstreth. Now there is a concept for an album, a man who shot himself in the leg. Do I have any suggestion as far as what the album will sound like? None at all, but I can only dream that it’ll sample some M.I.A. gunshots. In the past Dirty Projector albums have been based on The Black Flag, September 11th, and the Aztecs so what is next will hopefully come as a great surprise. Longstreth apparently wrote pages worth of words or phrases that had to do with his moods or thoughts and that’s what he started the album with. Most of what wrote deals with heartache, women, and loneliness, but how any of that relates to Plaxico Burress is beyond me. Obviously suggestive of pop-like lyrics hopefully the band will continue on its trend towards incorporating the women vocalists and creating a more pop sound compared to the older lo-fi rock that started with Longstreth.
Okay so he’s probably fucking with all of us because the album was finished in September, well before any of this Plaxico Non-sense took place. So what to ultimately expect? I’m not quite sure, but I have high hopes because the Dirty Projectors have been evolving on each and every record, and in my opinion getting better and better. Look for the record in early to mid 2009, though no official date has been set (damnit). Stay tuned for more news!
MIND INVERSION 
Monday, December 15, 2008 at 5:46 am
sorry to leave a negative comment, but i have to.. this band totally doesn’t impress me. they failed at the black flag “reinterpretation” by forgetting to cover some of the best songs from that album. And it is way less engaging than the original album in a way that I think kills the whole concept. in additon, i thought they were just plain extremely boring at pitchfork. it seemed like they were trying harder to not suck than they were to play awesome music; it was all just really disappointing. i dunno, i’d never heard them before that, so just my pov…i’d really have to try hard to listen to these guys again…