June 24th, 2010
Over a year after Björk and Dirty Projectors’ one-off collaboration at the Housing Works Bookstore in NYC, Dave has announced that the music specially written for that show has been recorded and is to be released next Wednesday (30 June). It’s a seven song affair, called Mount Wittenberg Orca, available as a download only, with profits going to the National Geographic Society’s Oceans Initiative, a campaign to establish international marine protected areas. The full story, including an explanatory letter from Dave is at Stereogum, whose Brandon Stosuy made it all happen. And five teaser clips for MWO are on the new Dirty Projectors YouTube channel.
Buy Mount Wittenberg Orca ($7)
Also this week, The Roots album How I Got Over, which features Amber, Haley and Angel performing on an interlude track, is streaming on the band’s MySpace, ahead of its release next week.
The third ever, first ever in Europe, Getty Address show takes place tomorrow at the Barbican, London, with Alarm Will Sound, then it’s on to the Glastonbury Festival for a slot on Sunday. For anyone in the UK, BBC2 and BBC3 are covering Glastonbury, so maybe there will be some DPs on tv this weekend.
Lastly, Dave has consented to a few more interviews in support of the groups current round of live dates…
T in the Park preview | Westword Music Showcase interview
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June 3rd, 2010
The mp3 of Dirty Projectors’ cover of Bob Dylan’s I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine is now available from the Levi’s Pioneer Sessions website. You give them your email address, they send you a download link. There’s also a YouTube clip and some photos.
More live shows, in the US and Canada, were announced this week and are on the Tour Dates page.
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May 28th, 2010
Whatever you do, don’t watch this YouTube clip of an interview with Brian and Nat. You’ll feel like you’ve been mugged for two minutes of your life by the interviewer. Just take my word for it that, at the end, Brian reveals that Dirty Projectors are in the studio working on a new album for release “this fall”.
Thanks to reader Sdorazi (who calls Brian and Nat “the non-dave guys”, reminding us of KITH’s The Daves I Know) for pointing this out.
Other news just in, Domino are releasing a 7″ single of Stillness Is The Move in the UK, to promote the London Barbican Centre Getty Address show. The b-side will be the Lucky Dragons remix of Stillness. As is also the case for Domino heavyweights Arctic Monkeys, Dirty Projectors don’t feature in the Domino/Uniqlo t-shirts range that was announced this week.
Finally, Pitchfork and Brooklyn Vegan have some photos of Wednesday’s David Byrne / Kitchen gala show.
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May 26th, 2010
Dirty Projectors have contributed their cover of Bob Dylan’s I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine (previously heard at the LA Getty Address show) to the Levi’s Pioneer Sessions. The mp3 isn’t up yet but Pitchfork has details.
The band are playing a David Byrne-themed benefit show in NYC tonight. Bad news - it’s sold out. Good news - it was $500 a ticket.
?uestlove has tweeted that The Roots are working with Haley, Amber and Angel on two interludes for their forthcoming album. See his photo, watch his video, anticipate.
Kris Ellestad, whose guitar tabs are linked from this site, has added another beautiful DPs cover version performance to YouTube, this time Spray Paint (The Walls). Tabs for Depression and Useful Chamber are under way, we hear.
[Before you call Ticketmaster, the poster above, by Michael Neault, is from a 2007 show. More archive gig posters are linked on the Past Shows page.]
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May 5th, 2010
- Dave DJ’d at the reportedly very hot Rites Of Spring Haiti benefit on Sunday night, along with Bjork, Tyondai Braxton and others. Haven’t seen a list of what he played so far but some photos have surfaced.
- New shows continue to be added. Academy 2, Manchester on 7 July and The Wiltern, LA on 24 September, to name two. See Tour Dates for more.
- Amber provides vocals on dubstep artist Rusko’s new record, Hold On [listen on YouTube]
- The Deradoorian song, You Carry The Deed, has been remixed by Hidden Cat [info and 128kbps mp3] [320kbps mp3 (via Hidden Cat myspace blog)]. (Note - if you put it after Mind Raft in iTunes and set your playback to crossfade, you’ll be mixing like a pro.)
- Record label Domino has taken steps to remove some clips of Dirty Projectors’ Coachella performance from YouTube. The clips were of full songs, professionally filmed, reputedly taken from a webcast (see Pitchfork). Let’s hope this is in anticipation of an official release.
- The Coachella show opened with I Will Truck [passable YouTube audience clip] and was watched by Jay-Z and Beyonce.
- Angel played a rare solo show on Monday and Nat has lined up five solo U.S. dates this month.
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April 12th, 2010
Dave will be DJing at a Brooklyn Haiti benefit night on May 2 with Bjork, Battles’ Tyondai Braxton and others. Stereogum and Brooklyn Vegan have the details.
In this short feature from before the just-happened Cape Cinema shows, Dave says Dirty Projectors have been “camped out… working on taking the songs apart and putting them back together in a new way. A tighter way.” Pitchfork reports that a new song, Scrappy Nephew, was debuted at Cape Cinema and there’s a YouTube recording of the performance here.
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March 19th, 2010
Good news for anyone in Europe who looked longingly at the Disney Center and Allen Room reviews and pictures - Dirty Projectors and Alarm Will Sound are to play a Getty Address show at the Barbican, London on 25 June…
http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=10551
Thanks to Harry for this info.
Stereogum has an mp3 of Dirty Projectors’ cover of Bob Dylan’s Dark Eyes, taken from an Australian radio session they played earlier. (That’s two Bob covers in a month, by my reckoning - I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine was part of the Disney Center encore.) Go here to hear the whole show.
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March 4th, 2010
Unless this is the only music site you ever read (hey, you could do worse) you’ll have heard that Dirty Projectors played their two special Getty Address shows at the Lincoln Center, NY and the Disney Concert Hall, LA. There’s only one YouTube clip so far, of two songs from the Disney encore - perhaps a blessing, given the quality of most YouTube content. There are, however, links to reviews, features and photos on the new UC ‘Past Shows‘ page. Take a scroll down this virtual Memory Lane for further link goodness, with more to be added as we go along.
The past fortnight also saw the Bang On A Can All-Stars‘ performance of three new and intriguingly named DL compositions. WQXR streamed it live but aren’t able to release the recording at present. As Joey from Portland says in the comments, “Hopefully someday [we] will get to hear the great sounds of Matt Damon, Breakfast At J&M, and Instructional Video“.
Meanwhile, the group are no doubt looking forward to sampling vegemite sandwiches and stocking up on Paul Hogan Show videos as the tour rolls into Australia this weekend. Great shame about the Lost Weekend, though.
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February 16th, 2010
Last Saturday night, Solange Knowles joined Dirty Projectors for a run through Stillness Is The Move at the launch party for Opening Ceremony’s new boutique at the Ace Hotel, NYC. DPs were playing as the house band, Solange was DJ. Who could have possibly foreseen what transpired?
Go to the Opening Ceremony site for YouTube clips, including a DPs cover of Tell Me by Groove Theory.
A photo slideshow and write-up are here. Look out for Michael Stipe’s moustache and Walker’s Crisps described as ‘British Walker Potato Chips’.
Thanks to Mike in San Francisco for being first with this news. The photo above is by Steve Eichner.
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February 10th, 2010
Too good to last, UK-published Plan B Magazine closed down last year. It always seemed more of a labour of love than money making exercise, and its founders have provided further evidence of their philanthropic intentions, making the entire archive (46 issues) available as a free download. Go to the Plan B website for download details (torrent client software required).
As a taster, try this PDF of the Dirty Projectors cover feature from January 2008. It’s from a few months after the release of Rise Above, halcyon days when it seemed there was a DPs show in London every other week.
Several former Plan B writers now contribute to The Quietus, a music and culture website not afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve and, occasionally, its foot in its mouth. The Quietus’ sister publication, The Stool Pigeon, is now available electronically and you can read a short Stool Pigeon interview with Dirty Projectors on the Useful Chamber interviews page.
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