Dirty Projectors

The New York Times called him “indie rock’s workaholic mad genius,” but L.A. RECORD finds the measure of Dirty Projectors’ David Longstreth somewhere between the most subtle implications of Philip Glass’ Music In Fifths and the sudden desire for a sandwich. This interview by Drew Denny.People have decided they can call Dirty Projectors an ‘experimental’ rock band—does the term ‘experimental’ have any meaning for you? David Longstreth: Not really. It’s sort of a dumb term. I don’t know what the experiments are really testing. I don’t know if there’s a control group. It’s not some Cage-ian thing of pushing against the notion of the socially acceptable or it’s not some chasing down of the—what’s that term? The Michael Crichton book?—the ‘event horizon’ of fucking modernism or something like that.This would be an awful interview if it were about that.David Longstreth: True!Do you have a sense of humor about what you make?David Longstreth: Fuck yeah. A lot of it is funny. I like the idea of something just being like imbued with this good humor. You know what I mean? I definitely look for that.In your music and a lot of what’s popular right now, there’s a lot of co-opting of other traditions—African guitars, for example. As someone who has a background in academia, how do you critique the process of co-opting those forms? Do you think it borders on fetishization? Or at least gimmick?David Longstreth: I guess I wouldn’t critique it along a political post-colonial line but just more… for me the thing that always pops one way or another is whether it seems legit on an artistic level, whether it seems interesting or whether it seems stock or kind of half-baked. I was listening to Music in Fifths—a really early Philip Glass piece from I think ‘69 the other day. I hadn’t listened to a lot of Philip Glass in a long time but that early shit from the early sixties and through like the Einstein on the Beach era I fucking love. And it occurred to me that Music in Fifths… Well, I was listening to that piece Atmospheres by Ligeti as well, and that’s from ’61 and Music in Fifths is from ’69, and I was thinking about how if you listen to pop music from ’61 and then pop music in ’69—even within a single band like the Beatles or something like that, you can really see the whole cultural arc of the ’60s. And how—superficially at least—you don’t see it at all in the Ligeti or the Glass. They both seem just about this weird terrifying gaping expanse of like—I don’t know—they both seem to approximate the end of civilization. But then I was thinking about it in a different way and it’s like, ‘Yes, the Ligeti does seem to be about this involvement with the Western art-music canon, but the Glass seems to be looking outward in this amazing way!’ I really recommend this piece! He’s trying really hard to synthesize all these different things—that kind of developmental aspect of Austro-Germanic music and the kind of modal weird raga explorations of the Indian music he had studied with Ravi Shankar. And it seems like the collective improvisational aspect of jazz and rock music at that time, too, because apparently it’s for a small combo and somehow the music is in parallel fifths the entire time. But the exact shape of it is improvised and the length of it is improvised. The music is so good because it doesn’t sound like any of those things. It doesn’t sound like classical music. It doesn’t sound like Indian music. It doesn’t sound like rock music or jazz. It’s completely its own new thing, but it really does draw from all these things and sum them together in this really fucking digested way. I guess that to me is more interesting than just like throwing a fucking humbucker pickup with like an 8th note delay on your thing and calling it African. But I don’t know. Whatever.What was it like working with David Byrne? David Longstreth: It was awesome working with him! I’ve been a fan of his music for like 10 years. It came about because the Dessner brothers from the National were curating this charity compilation, and they just wanted to put together artist collaborations that were surprising but logical in some way. I don’t know if I could put into words really what I learned or what we learned but it was definitely mind-blowing.You’ve gotten to collaborate with such amazing people—Bjork for instance. What’s your connection to her?David Longstreth: With Bjork—so many things, God—it’s a melodic sense, a harmonic sense… She’s just a great songwriter. The way she’s capable of combining really intricate and really kind of unique musical ideas with an immediate pop sense. It’s pretty amazing. Showing that those kinds of things aren’t opposite. That they belong together. It’s pretty cool.It’s interesting that you’re having a hard time describing these collaborations and influences because writers seem to have difficulties describing Dirty Projectors. What do you think about that? David Longstreth: I think music can get at something that can’t be talked about. That’s cool. I like the idea of it being more than the sum of its influences.I’ve been doing some research into the use of memory in art making—could you describe the process of making an album by memory?David Longstreth: It’s kind of like making an album that’s not from memory. I feel like most songwriting is just pulling something out that is a poorly remembered version of something else. So it’s kind of similar.How would you feel if someone did that with a Dirty Projectors album?David Longstreth: I don’t have a feeling about that that. It’d be kind of dumb.My roommate is Austrian, and she says ‘Bitte Orca’ really nicely—David Longstreth: Yeah! That’s it! I was really depressed when I got to the UK and I realized they pronounced it ‘Bita Rorka!’ It’s really ugly in the U.K. accent.Do you think in the future you’ll make different versions of titles to compensate for potentially ugly pronunciations?David Longstreth: Yeah—probably just phonetic spellings and lots of umlauts.I’ve heard this album described as a ‘breakthrough’—what does that actually mean?David Longstreth: In order for me to talk about what that would mean, I would probably have to agree with the premise. I don’t mean to be flippant. When they’re describing it like that, they’re referring to the fact that a lot more people hear this album than any of the others we’ve made. Whether it represents something more than that—some kind of artistic breakthrough—I would say yes and no. I kind of feel like I’ve just—in various Dirty Projector albums and with the band solidifying—my aims have always been the same. It just feels like more music.Your aims have always been the same? This album sounds very different to me.David Longstreth: In the past, once I had an idea I just put it down and that was that. This time I took a lot more time—rehearsing everything and recording it and making sure the ideas were brought to coherence rather than just being laid out there like a puzzle for someone who is really curious to put together on their own,It reminds me of hip-hop in that way—everything seems like it was put in a place for a reason. It’s very produced.David Longstreth: I know what you mean. The spaciousness of mainstream R&B production—particularly a few years ago—and how there are a few elements that can sit in this emptiness and just pop so big. I love that feeling.What’s it like for you to write for other singers—especially women?David Longstreth: It’s pretty cool. The register I tend to write things in is kind of a register that ends up being good for ladies. For me it’s pitched sort of where I go into falsetto but for them it’s really in their heart of their register. Pretty natural.Do you feel like a puppeteer or a director?David Longstreth: Not a puppeteer! Maybe a director. I just feel like a songwriter.How much agency do the other band members have in terms of writing and performance?David Longstreth: A fair amount. It really comes together—when we play it live it becomes its own beast. Takes on a whole different life. Becomes very collective. A different thing. This album I really tried to write for specific personalities, which I’d never done before. So I guess you could say they have agency in that sense as well.Are you painting now?David Longstreth: I’m doing a little bit of drawing. Right now we’re on tour so I’m not right now but before that I was drawing a bit. I love to make really flawed analogies between media all the time—comparing line quality to melodic shape and insisting that there are correspondences, and what that means when a line does one thing and a melody does another. You know—that kind of shit!What are y’all gonna be for Halloween?David Longstreth: We’re thinking about being Fleetwood Mac but we’d have to have some double Lindsay Buckinghams? And double Stevie Nicks.Are there crazy romances in your band?David Longstreth: No—nothing crazy.Because if you’re Fleetwood Mac…David Longstreth: That’s true… OK, I should go get a sandwich.