Saturday 10.31.09: DIRTY PROJECTORS / LITTLE WINGS @ rec center studio (Early Show)

dirtyprojectors

Mr. Longstreth, a lanky guy who makes the strangest rooster-like neck movements when he plays, started the show with an odd pronouncement: “Nothing bad can happen because we are in the house of Robert Nesta Marley.” Then the new six-piece lineup of the band — the bassist Nat Baldwin and singer Haley Dekle have been added to the core quartet –launched into music that wasn’t reggae but seemed to envelop everything else imaginable.

The scratchy, African-influenced guitars Dirty Projectors fans are used to were there, but with a new kaleidoscopic complexity, and the addition of Mr. Baldwin on bass gave it all a sense of rhythmic solidity. The band’s three female members — Angel Deradoorian, Amber Coffman and Ms. Dekle — sang in harmonies so odd and precise they seemed to come from outer space; at one point they traded quick staccato notes as if singing Steve Reich on fast-forward. (If my music education is worth anything, I believe that technique is called hocketing. I’ll bet Dave Longstreth, who dropped out of Yale to make music full-time, knows if that’s right.)

Most impressive, though, is that it’s high-concept music that has real visceral power, and the crowd erupted into big belly roars at the end of every song. Like me, I think a lot of fans may have given up halfway through trying to give it all a zinger name and just let themselves be amazed. – New York Times

with:
Little Wings

@ Rec Center Studio
1161 Logan Street
Echo Park, CA 90026