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Fun Fun Fun fest review: The Dirty Projectors
Tammy Perez AMERICAN-STATESMAN
No matter what angle you look at them, the Dirty Projectors are a very strange band.
Guitarist and Yale graduate Dave Longstreth is their only constant member; the band has had more than 15 members in eight years. His melodies are arrays of notes, some times sparing, sometimes cascading, carefully calibrated to sound alternately random and enormously complex in timing and structure. The vocal frontline consists of three women - guitarist Amber Coffman, keyboardist Angel Deradoorian and singer Haley Dekle - who vocies sometimes scream and sometimes croon. I don’t recall anyone by Longstreth addressing the crowd during their Fun Fun Fun set Saturday evening. The rhythm section drove and parried as the songs required.
The band’s 2007 album “Rise Above” (Dead Oceans) was a crafty, track by track remainging of Black Flag’s hardcore punk classic “Damaged” - the two don’t sound a thing alike. 2009’s “Bitte Orca” (Domino) was a huge critical breakthrough and its eye-popping compositions and careening vocals found purchase on all sorts of year-end best-of lists.
In festival setting, this music translated oddly. The vocals seemed overly harsh and mood-puncturing, and it was difficult to tell if this was intentional, sketchy mixing or questionable microphone technique. Longstreth’s compositions, ideal for a small club, seemed to lose detail in front of a big crowd. (But the band drew a huge crowd and my hat goes off to the fans who were singing along to these musical Calculus derivatives.)
It perhaps didn’t help the more primitive among us that Gwar — dressed in rubber costumes that looked liked giant lead figures that escaped from a role playing game - was playing down the park apiece, their goofy atavism a stark contrast to what was happening on the Orange Stage. “I can’t believe we’re missing Gwar,” Longstreth said. Dude, why did you have to remind us?
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