Mount Wittenberg Orca

With Japanese whaling practices under intense international scrutiny lately, it's somewhat serendipitious that Mount Wittenberg Orca, Dirty Projectors' new collaborative EP with Björk, was released last week. Not only do the lyrics recount the meeting between DP's Amber Coffman and a family of whales along the Northern California coast near Mount Wittenberg, but the proceeds from the seven-track, 21-minute suite will be donated to the National Geographic Society to help create international marine protected areas (only 1% of the oceans are currently protected). But the EP isn't just about whale politics. While certainly pertinent to today's whaling controversies — namely in regard to conservation and sustainability — primary songwriter Dave Longstreth extends Amber's whale story into more metaphysical realms, exploring the nature of "nature" while obliterating the divides that obscure our perception of wholeness, of unity, of infinity.

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If you’re on this site and reading this, it’s unlikely you’re going to need one of those neat little review-opening spiels about the current relevance of Band X. Especially not when Band X happens to be Dirty Projectors, who since the release of last year’s Bitte Orca have been subject to an expansion in column inches comparable to the Big Bang. So, leaving out the usual mulch about their past, it’s been interesting as ever to witness a blossoming backlash against the supposed ‘hipster’ culture Dave Longstreth and co apparently subscribe to. I don’t buy it; for all its foibles, it’s nigh on impossible to suggest that Bitte Orca lacks substance or longevity. In fact, it’s positively brimming with the stuff, and even cursory listens tend to reveal that, yes, it actually sounds even better now than it did a year ago. Take that, naysayers.

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Björk and Dirty Projectors aren't known for informality. They move freely, but within obsessively constructed worlds. They make the questionable choices lesser artists would be afraid to, and they do it on their own clock. But their reputation for being anal-retentive and self-contained is one of the reasons Mount Wittenberg Orca-- a recording of a song cycle performed last May for Housing Works, a charity and chain of upmarket thrift stores in New York-- is so refreshing. Dave Longstreth, the brain and foreman of Dirty Projectors, wrote the songs in less than a month, and the group rehearsed together for only a week. At a listening party the band held for the EP in late June, he explained that the songs were mostly recorded live and in the same room. The result is 20 minutes of music that sounds more dressed-down than anything Björk or Dirty Projectors have put out before. And while it's hard to imagine them working this stuff out while intermittently horsing around in the backyard, the performances here are casual, at least by their standards. The occasional blemishes aren't chinks in the armor, they're fortifying-- they're evidence of the group spirit at work.

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Let’s get the rather strange yet essential set-up out of the way first. Stereogum writer Brandon Stosuy invited Dirty Projectors and Bjork, mutual fans of each other’s music, to collaborate on a benefit show performance at a New York bookstore. After discussing what to play, the two camps decided to collaborate on brand-new material for the performance, instead of just cranking out their greatest hits.

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