Always Wanting More

In December of last year Blair asked me whether I had heard of a band called The Dirty Projectors. I informed him that I'd heard the name, but as I considered it a "hipster band name" I was strongly opposed to investigating them further. The subject was promptly dropped. On the evening of the 23rd of December (two days before Christmas) at the Old Bar on Johnston Street Blair informed me that he had purchased a copy of the album Rise Above by The Dirty Projectors. He explained that the album was an attempt by David Longstreth (the band's "musical director") to recreate the Black Flag album Damaged from memory. However, the album sounded nothing like Black Flag at all and instead contained Longstreth's soulful wailing and intricate guitar-work, string and wind arrangements and a series complex female vocal harmonies. I was intrigued. So much so that the next day I jumped onto the internet and illegally downloaded my very own copy of the album.

Between that time and now I have developed an almost symbiotic relationship with the album. Having just ended my sexual relationship with a 36-year old Singapore Airlines hostess, the album has become something of a security blanket. I refuse to leave it alone and it refuses to leave me. I listen to it when I am in my bedroom, I listen to it when I am in the lounge room. I listen to it whilst walking around the city, I listen to it while I am slicing vegetables for dinner, but most of all I listen to it whilst driving around in the car I am minding for Kate Shum. It is in the car where I feel I can connect most directly with the album. The cocoon of the car's interior allows me to mimic Longstreth's bellows at a volume that would otherwise be unobtainable in a more public area or in the confines of the share-house I reside in. While I have not heard the Black Flag album that Rise Above is based on, the album is such a supreme musical document that I feel that it is unnecessary for me to have listened to it. I have a general idea of what Black Flag sound like, I know the sound of American punk/hardcore albums from that era and for me this is enough to appreciate the way that Longstreth has re-written those songs.

One interesting note on the album concerns the song Six Pack where in the bridge Longstreth and his co-vocalists Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian switch from English to Esperanto. From what research I have done I can deduce that whilst Longstreth is not a fluent Esperanto speaker, he is very much intrigued by the language and, like myself, seems committed to the ideals that other Esperantists around the world subscribe to. On a further side-note, in recent days I have been very interested to learn that the Hungarian-American financial speculator, stock investor, philanthropist, and political activist, George Soros is one of the very rare (estimated at between 200 and 2000) native Esperanto speakers. His father, Teodoro Ŝvarc (or Schwartz) was the founder of the Esperanto literary magazine Literatura Mondo. Soros was given his surname as it means "will soar" in Esperanto (also, "designated successor" in Hungarian). Furthermore, the name is also a palindrome.

Due to having enjoyed the album Rise Above so much in the last few weeks, I decided it would be prudent of me to listen to another of the band's releases. So in the past few days I have been playing with some frequency the band's album of 2005 titled The Getty Address. The Getty Address has been described as a "glitch opera". The album was created by recording extensive string and choral arrangements, which Longstreth proceeded to "chop up" digitally to create a backing to overdub his on guitar, bass, beats and vocals. Lyrically the album is written from the perspective of Don Henley, as a Spanish Conquistador, going in search of the shape of love. The album is far from being an immediate rewarding listen, however with each subsequent listen it is beginning to make a significant impression on me.

It is obvious after listening to The Dirty Projector's records that David Longstreth is a unique musical talent and dynamic thinker. His ability to create ideas that are distinct, clever and suitably implemented is both inspired and inspiring. His albums have helped me greatly with the hardship I am experiencing presently after the break-up of my first adult relationship. His music sooths and comforts the soul, and provides positive distraction through intellectual stimulation from the hurt that I feel inside. Longstreth is a man whom I feel I have a genuine affinity with, and a man whose art I hope to have more of an association with in the coming years.