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Album Review

Dirty Projectors
Rise Above Rough Trade

Article written by Ged M - Sep 25, 2007

Rise Above might be the most striking record of 2007, the closest comparison possibly being Bjork’s technicolour high-concept artrock Volta. The reason is partly the voice: David Longstreth has a way of disorientating you with his warbling falsetto, a sort of Edwyn Collins meets Prince; the way he rolls words round his tongue is like some untutored deep soul singer singing in English for the very first time. The other reason is variety: the album migrates between orchestrated funk-pop and chattering African guitars, from soothing to lacerating, ethereal to gritty, classical to booty-shaking R’n’B in a heartbeat. It’s like nothing else you’re hearing right now.

You could call this a concept album, since it’s based on Longstreth’s reimagining of the 1981 Black Flag record ‘Damaged’. These aren’t covers through; his songs are built around his memories of the Black Flag originals and do little more than borrow titles and some lyrics (usually choruses) from 10 of the songs. He then invests them with radically different arrangements and meanings in a process that’s more like an artist revisiting a familiar image for novel effect. It’s not made for easy listening, mainly because we’re conditioned to listen to short bursts of music constructed in similar commercial formats while Dirty Projectors go off on colourful tangents, observing certain rules of pop but discarding others.

The whole album sticks in the memory, especially the honeyed effect of Amber and Angel’s voices used in chorus, but there are particular songs that mesmerise. On ‘Police Story’, Longstreth croons “this fucking city is run by pigs” but where Black Flag were angry and anarchic, Dirty Projectors are more soulful and resigned, assembling elements of the Who and a woodwind ensemble for the song. ‘Six Pack’ was a hymn to drunken youth in the original; it’s crazy African rockabilly the way the Projectors do it, and the way Angel and Amber trill “I get a six pack in me alright” is one of the best moments on the record. ‘Rise Above’ is the most sweetly melodic of the 10 tracks on the album, lush and richly harmonic, probably the most pop of these tunes.

It strikes me that the record is as significant as when Talking Heads found soul and funk; it’s also occurs to me that it’s likely to have a Marmite effect on listeners but stick with it and you’ll one day thank David Longstreth for making indie creditable again.

Links:
http://www.myspace.com/dirtyprojectors