The ladies of Dirty Projectors (Amber Coffman, Haley Dekle and newcomer Olga Bell) use their dense interplay of vocal harmonies to provide a powerful backdrop for frontman David Longstreth to warble and modulate over. While Longstreth’s anguished lilt has always characterized Dirty Projectors’ sound, the female vocal section led by Coffman stole the show on the track “Stillness is the Move” off the Projectors’ 2009 breakout record, Bitte Orca.
The track attracted the attention of Solange Knowles, Beyonce’s more indie-inclined younger sister, who covered the song shortly thereafter.
Bassist Nat Baldwin stays out of the vocal arena with the band, though his haunting vocals adorn his solo project's upright bass stylings.
Baldwin has played in iterations of Dirty Projectors since 2005. Longstreth was attending school in New England and the pair met through mutual friends. At that point the band’s lineup was unset. Longstreth had released one album, The Glad Fact, under the name Dirty Projectors in 2003 on which his crazy is more free and unbottled as he wavers between tender ballads and edgier noise.
While Bitte Orca is filled with tight, rich compositions that form a cohesive whole, this year’s recently released album, Swing Lo Magellan, focuses more on individual songs in one of the band’s most relatable works to date. The new album is mellower and more intimate.
“For Swing Lo Magellan, a lot of the recording was actually done live in a way,” said Baldwin. “The rhythm section, all that stuff, was done while we were playing together as well as the singing, done separately but the parts were sung together.”
It shows on the record, too. The personality of the record reflects that of a campfire jam session. The recordings on Swing Lo Magellan feature smatterings of conversation and sounds of laughter between band members.
Baldwin said that this difference makes the album more translatable to a live setting.
While it preserves the rhythmic irregularities, the frilliness of Longstreth’s guitar parts and the cryptic-yet-ingenious lyrics, its intensity is reduced by several orders of magnitude.
“[During the writing process,] Dave was living in upstate New York,” said Baldwin. “He was living alone or with Coffman sometimes. He would send us songs in their various stages of development. We did a few weekends when it was just bass and drums. Dave wrote all the stuff, and we’d come and try to put it together.”
“Some of it was totally mapped out compositionally, other parts left more room for interpretation,” Baldwin continued. “That’s sort of always how it goes with the way Dave writes.”
Baldwin had just come off a tour of his own album, People Changes, before going into production on Swing Lo Magellan. He took a hiatus from the band during the early production of Bitte Orca, but came back to tour for that album. He said he enjoys working on both projects and does not feel like solo work takes away from his part in Dirty Projectors whatsoever and actually stimulates creativity in both arenas.
Catch the show at the Majestic Theatre on Saturday and see Dirty Projectors translate their distinctive studio sound to a live audience. The doors open at 10 p.m. and the show starts at 11 p.m. with opener Night Moves.
