The Instagram-looking photo above is the cover of new Dirty Projectors LP, Swing Lo Magellan, so we’re told. Why is Dave miming the guitar right handed? Or is he asking if there are public loos further along the path? Will the man in the photo turn litigious like the Vampire Weekend covergirl? What can it all mean? If you think you know, you may fancy a crack at Stereogum’s caption competition, although you need to be on Facebook to enter by the looks of it.

Also revealed is news of a 3000-only deluxe vinyl+ edition of Swing Lo Magellan. Like the recent Talk Talk reissues, it bucks the ‘Mastered for iTunes’ trend by coming bundled with 24bit WAV files (CD is 16bit), for the full audiophile experience.

Read full details and find pre-order links at the new, very improved Dirty Projectors official website, which now includes a popout page for each DPs album, with contemporaneous photos, credits and other related content.

For the latest Dirty Projectors news, scroll down this page to the Twitter newsfeed or follow @UsefulChamber

Follow the link below for a free download of Get Free by Major Lazer (producers Diplo and Switch) featuring lead vocals from Dirty Projectors’ own Amber Coffman.  There are two meaty 320kbps mp3s in the zip file - the lovely, lilting original mix and a more up-in-your-face treatment by Bonde Do Role.

Get Get Free free

Dirty Projectors today announced that their new album, Swing Lo Magellan, will be released on 9 July in Europe and 10 July in North America.  This follows Friday’s airing of new track Gun Has No Trigger which is released digitally today on iTunes.  It was further announced that Angel Deradoorian, a member since 2007, is on hiatus from the band.  Below are full details from Domino’s press release.  For the latest Dirty Projectors news, as it happens, follow Useful Chamber on Twitter or scroll down to view the Twitter feed on this page.

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Where prior DPs albums investigated 20th-century orchestration (The Getty Address), aerated the aesthetics of 80s hardcore and west African guitar music (Rise Above), and explored complex contrapuntal techniques in human voices (Bitte Orca and Mt Wittenberg Orca), Swing Lo Magellan is a leap forward again.

“It’s an album of songs, an album of songwriting,” says Longstreth.

The songs of Swing Lo Magellan are culled from a sprawling twelve months of constant writing and recording in a weird house in Delaware County, New York (four hours northwest of the city). Longstreth, who produced and mixed, wrote seventy new songs and beats. The band - Amber Coffman (vocals & guitar), Nat Baldwin (bass), Brian McOmber (drums) & Haley Dekle (vocals) (vocalist Angel Deradoorian is on hiatus) - joined him periodically, rehearsing the new music more or less constantly in the house’s A-frame attic  The twelve songs of Swing Lo Magellan were winnowed down from about forty finished demos. The finished recordings bear the impress of this informal working style: the album is a collection of moments: accidental, fortuitous, spontaneous. The performances feel warm and imperfect. Unguarded intimacy is somewhat of a new look for this band, and it turns out it’s a very good look.

Swing Lo Magellan is an album that comes from the hearts of one of the most fearlessly thoughtful bands of the last ten years. The album has both the handmade intimacy of a love letter and the widescreen grandeur of a blockbuster, and if that sounds like a paradox - it’s because it was until now.

Swing Lo Magellan will be available on CD, vinyl and via digital download. The tracklisting is as follows:

Offspring Are Blank / About to Die /  Gun Has No Trigger / Swing Lo Magellan / Just From Chevron / Dance For You / Maybe That Was It / Impregnable Question / See What She Seeing / The Socialites / Unto Caesar / Irresponsible Tune

Full details and links for buying the print and online editions are here.

UsefulChamber on Twitter - twitter.com/UsefulChamber

Non-Twitter users can view the feed on this page and click the short URL links for the full story. The band has its own Twitter page, so I’ll retweet anything that appears there, although happily they look to be more focused on music than social media - four tweets since September.

Quick, go to Tinymixtapes to find out how to get the new Bang On A Can All-Stars album, Big, Beautiful, Dark And Scary, which includes three tracks composed by Dave Longstreth.  It’s available free of charge for the first 25 days of this year.

Happy 2012 to one and all!

Spin.com has spoken at length to Dave about the writing and recording of songs for the new Dirty Projectors album, written during a solitary sojourn in a rural “haunted” house in Delaware County.  The new recordings are described as somewhat stripped back, “much less about color and arrangements [than Bitte Orca]“, touching on themes of “horror or fear” and “close to complete”…

Dirty Projectors Embrace ‘Horror,’ Respond to Strokes on New LP (Spin.com)

Pitchfork’s mention of the article adds Dave’s clarification of a Strokes-related quip that rather misleadingly found its way into in the Spin headline.

Don’t miss Hipster Runoff’s unique take on the story.

Domino Record Co yesterday announced a physical release for Mount Wittenberg Orca on 24/25 October.  The 3000-only deluxe vinyl LP comes in a lenticular cover with a 12 page booklet and the first 500 people to order it will receive a signed print.  There’s a CD, too.

Details and order links here.  There are a lot of Björk fans out there, so if you’re hoping for the signed print, better move fast!

As you may already have read, Dirty Projectors’ Facebook page reported last month that the band are reconvening to start work on the new record:

“hey all, dave longstreth has been working on new songs since january, and we are all getting really psyched! the band is getting together later this month to hang, listen and prepare. recording this summer. so excited for the next chapter! thanks so much for all your support”

Thanks to Thomas for reminding me to post this exciting news.