Dirty Projectors are a band that have remained nearly impossible to define throughout their decade-long career. What began as a solo project of David Longstreth (vocals/guitar/songwriting) expanded into a revolving door of supporting members and now a core six-piece group with Longstreth at master controls. Combining harmonious vocals, worldly rhythms, and intricate instrumentation, Dirty Projectors have carved out a sound that is strikingly original. Their complex yet oddly accessible music has won the hearts of both critics and colleagues: Jay-Z, Björk, and David Byrne to name a few.
Swing Lo Magellan, their latest album, is a stunning collection of their most stripped-down material to date. With the same trademark Dirty Projectors sound, Magellan swaps the elaborate arrangements of their previous album, 2009’s Bitte Orca, for a more intimate focus on songwriting. Swing Lo Magellan has received some of the band’s best reviews yet and will surely show up high on many end-of-the-year lists.
In advance of their appearance on Saturday, September 29 as the finale of the Majestic Theatre’s 5-Year Anniversary weekend, I spoke to vocalist/guitarist Amber Coffman about Madison, their new album and film, and life as a Dirty Projector.
In support of the new album Swing Lo Magellan, Dirty Projectors had a string of shows throughout July and August, and you start another run of dates next week. Where are you now? And how have you been keeping busy during the mini-break?
“Yes, it’s about three weeks off. We’re all home right now, spread out among New York and Connecticut and… well, I’m in New York. We’ve been resting and gearing up. And Dave [Longstreth] has been busy working on his new film.”
That film is Hi Custodian, just released a couple of weeks ago. It’s somehow both beautifully disjointed and cohesive at the same time.
“Yes, it’s sort of like a weird dream. It’s hard for me to describe it because it’s not my vision, but it’s images paired with music and there’s sort of a loose storyline but it’s really just kind of like a weird dream. We shot it outside of Los Angeles over several days.”
Did Dave discuss the ideas for it at all while writing and recording the album?
“No, no, it was a separate thing. We were asked to do a music video but he dreamed up a collection of them with a bunch of loosely connected threads.”
You do a lot of dressing up in Hi Custodian. Is there a favorite moment? What was it like to embody some of those different characters that we see?
“It was fun! I’ve always wanted to act and stuff, so it was really cool. Picking a favorite is tough. There were so many! I liked the braided-hair thing, with Haley [Dekle]’s and my hair braided together. That looked really neat.”
A gig poster for Dirty Projectors’ stop at
Catacombs Coffee House in Madison in 2003.
So this might be a nice sneak-peek at some acting down the horizon for you then?
“Aww, I hope so.”
Have you ever been to Madison?
“Yes! I was there with my old band [Sleeping People]. It’s hard to remember details now, but we played at this big house with… like, ivy on the walls. It was near water. Basically just kind of a college house party.”
I was doing a little digging around on Dirty Projectors’ website to see if Dave has played in Madison previously. The answer is yes, twice, 2003 and 2005, both times at a coffeehouse that is now a Subway restaurant.
“Oh no!”
Hopefully the Majestic doesn’t meet that same fate. Now this might be an oddball question but… are you familiar with the band GWAR?
“Yes. They played at this venue in Sacramento where I lived… I’ve lived all over the place, but I was living there and they played the last show at this place. The fake blood and stuff closed it down.”
GWAR played at the Majestic in March, and your friend Diplo was performing there the next night. He was in town a day early, took in the GWAR show, and apparently loved it so much he was wearing a GWAR t-shirt on stage the next night.
(laughs)
Anyway… you worked with him recently on the Major Lazer song “Get Free” which I really like.
“Cool, thank you.”
What do you enjoy most about collaborating with the likes of Diplo and Rusko? It seems like a totally different world from what you’re used to.
“It’s totally different but it’s super fun. Diplo is a really cool guy, very smart and talented. It’s fun to kind of dip into that old sort of R&B kind of love of my youth a little bit, but I don’t think it’s something I could do all the time.”
We’ve been hearing a lot about the new record, Swing Lo Magellan, being a re-invention that, according to your press, “does what no Dirty Projectors album has done before: It’s about songs.” What does that mean? And how did the recording process feel different to that of Bitte Orca?
“I think being ‘about the songs’ means it’s less about the tricks, or something, the things that layer over, than it is about a complete song itself that gives you a certain kind of feeling. It was different because it was a much longer process. It took three times as long to put this record together. And also, I think that with Bitte Orca, Dave was writing the songs specifically with the members of the band in mind that we had, and what sort of tools we’ve been touring with and that we had live, and this time he just kind of threw all of that out the window and wrote what he wanted to write and we worried about how to do it live later.”
There was something like 60 or 70 demos that was kind of culled down to a dozen?
“Yeah.”
What’s the process like in Dave writing all those songs or partial songs and the band then helping to flesh them out?
“In choosing the songs, it’s really just the ones that came-together-in-the-time-that-we-needed kind of thing, and also it turned out that a lot of his songs that were the most recent ones he had written were the ones that ended up making it. There weren’t a lot of songs that we had all been living with — you know, with the demos and stuff for that year — that we were surprised didn’t make it, but I think that it was just the ones that gelled together and the ones that felt fresh because Dave had recently written them. We just exchanged a bunch of emails back and forth about choosing the songs and stuff like that.”
Dirty Projectors have been known to do 12-hour rehearsal sessions.
“Putting Swing Lo Magellan together live, we had a really long rehearsal period. We did it differently this time than we ever have. In the past we’ve tried to put a live set together in a really short amount of time, like a couple of weeks, and we’re just grinding really hard. And then by the time we go on tour, we’ve been a little burnt out already. We did work a lot and did really long days, but we did it for five weeks before the tour this time which meant that we got to have days off! And rest! And got to be sort of a little more mellow with it which was cool.”
How does being in Dirty Projectors change when you’re on stage as compared to rehearsal or recording in the studio?
“They’re similar. It’s interesting; in the studio we just kind of get the most accurate and best-take-that-has-a-feeling-to-it as we possibly can. And live, it’s like muscle memory and getting that stuff worked out — but it’s really fun to put it together live, especially when you almost have it, you know, but I have a really good time playing the music live. I like recording but I think I like performing a lot, too, maybe better.”
What might Madison fans expect to see and hear when Dirty Projectors visit the Majestic Theatre on September 29?
“Well, hopefully the show will surprise and delight. That’s what we hope.”