Best of 2009 Pt. VI: Bitte Orca by Dirty Projectors

I know, another album that's being hyped to death. I had previously written off Dirty Projectors, having only heard Rise Above. But this is way more engaging and fun to listen to, and somehow still just as bizarre. Put on your headphones so you don't miss anything or annoy your roommates and dig in, kids. "Cannibal Resource" starts the album with a head-nodding beat and the strangest harmonic progressions this side of 20th century classical music. Luckily this song also features lead singer/musical mastermind Dave Longstreth on vocals, so you'll know right away what you're in for. By contrast, the album's single, "Stillness is the Move," leaves the vocal chores entirely to Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian, the group's female singers/instrumentalists extraordinaire.

I find it hard to describe this album. It's a unique formula, comprised of Amber and Angel's harmony vocals (including some crazy hocketing toward the end of "Remade Horizon"), Dave's own peculiar vocal melodies (some people really hate his voice, but I think it's perfect for the music he creates), lots of guitars and other stringed instruments (I think I hear mandolins but it could be something more exotic) plucking strange arpeggios and riffs, all over some deep, solid grooves provided by the bass and drums. It's a wonderful world to lose yourself in. The songs typically don't feature anything like a standard chord progression, and the guitars are rarely used to just strum chords, but even when they do, the effect is never anything like a standard folk or rock song. Melodies and whole sections come and go without repeating themselves. And yet each track has at least something resembling a chorus or a catchy hook. Overall, I guess I'd say they strike the middle ground between "serious compositions" and ordinary songs.

Longstreth writes all the music for Dirty Projectors (although Amber got co-writing credit for "Stillness"), the project he began as a freshman at Yale University's School of Music. The album he made that first year of college - The Glad Fact - is astonishing and well worth listening to. In fact, most of the Dirty Projectors' back catalog is worth seeking out, although I'm still not crazy about Rise Above.