2012
has been a prolific year for Dave Longstreth and Dirty Projectors. First with
the full length release of Swing Lo Magellan in July, followed by the
release in September of Longstreth's short film Hi Custodian, featuring
members of Dirty Projectors along with music from Swing Lo Magellan, and
now a follow up EP, About To Die, released just four months after the
aforementioned full-length. About To Die is a kind of spin-off of Swing
Lo Magellan as it shares its title and first track with the second song
from the LP released earlier this year.
Longstreth, lead
singer and primary creative entity of the band, admits in an
interview that Swing Lo Magellan was more of a collection of individual
songs with little to tie them together thematically. This was due to a number
of factors such as the amount of time over which the album's songs were written
and recorded, (over a year), as well as a conscious effort by Longstreth to
write less self-concsiously and exude a more raw and personal quality in his
music. About To Die continues in this more personal style, but acts as
a departure from thematic non connectivity of songs found on SLM. If
each song on SLM represents an individual thematic direction, then About
To Die is a distinct choice to follow one of these single themes more
comprehensively.
About
To Die begins with electronic drum samples and hand
claps. These are joined by gentle plucks and strums on strings. The percussion
develops fragmented and erratic, while oddly keeping a consistent rhythm. The
second track, "While You're Here," is beautiful in it's minimalism
and the raw emotional energy of Longstreth's vocals. Just strings and vocals
wrapped up and moving with an almost Disney quality. "Here Til It Says I'm
Not," follows the flighty second track and immediately grounds the
listener with the entrance of driving and dryly recorded drums. This song is
the most traditional sounding pop song of the four. Lovely harmonized oohs
materialize from behind this groove revealing this song as a doo-wop inspired
ballad à la Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground. In the choruses, the drums are
just a fraction of a beat behind the rest of the song offering a purposeful,
lazy kind of delivery that adds to the laid back mood of the song. The EP wraps
up with the final track, "Simple Request," which meanders along with
psychedelic stylings and fairly heavy and slightly distorted drums.
Longstreth's
vocals on About To Die are soulful with a bit of squeakyness to them.
They scratch and break and are traditionally flawed but charming because of
this and because of their honest
delivery. He howls with the vocal inflections of a pop star singing the National Anthem. But whereas the pop star is showing off their tonal mastery of their
vocal chords, Longstreth's inflections are emotional reactions to the music and
lyrical content of these songs.
Lyrically,
the thematic overarch of About To Die, is existential, possibly in the
presence of one's own realized mortality. The songs on the record develop
inquisitively, exploring ideas about being "here," and being
"alive," with a distinction that however closely related these words
may be, they are not synonymous.
About To
Die was a very pleasantly arranged short story
of a record, totaling just over twelve minutes in length. It comes and goes and
the EP's downfall is that it only whets one's appetite and (to continue this
metaphor) leaves the listener hungry for more. However, if the band continues at their current rate
of production, there should hopefully be something new for Dirty Projectors
fans to digest not too far into the future.
Grade: A
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