BAND OF THE WEEK #1: DIRTY PROJECTORS

In an interview with Pitchfork Ed Droste of the band Grizzly Bear said this about the Dirty Projectors:

Someone was asking me about what I was listening to and I was saying "Oh, Dirty Projectors, I love the new album," and they were like, "Well what kind of music is it?" and I just stopped dead in my tracks and literally didn't know how to describe it.
At first I was embarrassed because I didn't know how to describe it, but then I was like, this is what's so amazing about a lot of music now. There are so many different things and there's so much going on and Bitte Orca is so distinctly Dirty Projectors that I didn't even know how to begin to describe what genre it is, you know? What would one categorize it as? So I find it hard lately to label things as indie or pop or folk or give it some sort of categorization.

The last question is one I found myself asking quite a bit last friday when I challenged myself with a daunting quest: Listen to every Dirty Projectors album non-consecutively. But where are my manners? I'd guess that a bit of background on this band would be more than appropriate.

Dirty Projectors was founded in 2002 by frontman Dave Longstereth, their first release The Graceful Fallen Mango was released on the Western Vinyl label under his name. For their second album they adopted the name Dirty Projectors and have made 5-7 (if you count EPs) more albums and counting.
My first contact with Dirty Projectors was in 2005 when I got The Graceful Fallen Mango out of curiosity. I honestly couldn't wrap my head around it at first. It was mostly acoustic tracks performed by Longstereth. They lacked organization and often sounded like a child attempting to make up a song on the spot. I listened once and only made it about halfway through the album before I made up an excuse to listen to something else. Even though I could never put my finger on anything that was genuinely likable about that album, I found myself going back and listening to it in small parts from time to time.

Fast forward to 2009, Dirty Projectors have just released their well-received album, Bitte Orca and I have some XM radio station playing in the background. The new Dirty Projectors single "Stillness is the Move" comes on and I stop what I was doing to listen to it. There's a structure, the vocalist was a female, I honestly couldn't believe that I was listening to the same band, but there was definitely something familiar about it. As if my radio knew that I had doubts, something happened and the station played the song again. It was definitely the same band but they had grown up.
I did some research and found out that in the time I had been ignoring their other albums the band had switched labels and filled out with Longstereth still at the helm. I began catching up on what I had missed. There's a lot of experimentation in their music and I'll admit that not all of the songs that make up their discography are very good, in fact I find some entirely unlistenable.

Last week I decided to see if I could make it through the bands full catalogue in one sitting, I won't lie and say I didn't fall short of my goal because I did, I took a small break to listen to Yeasayer and I skipped a few songs that I personally cannot stand, but nonetheless I felt like I had accomplished something at the end of it all.
What that was I am still not sure.

These guys are really worth checking out, I still have no idea what genre to even think about categorizing them as and I feel like that's the way they want it.

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