Unless your 2009 consisted of a vaycay on the moon there’s a 99% chance you awkwardly danced to Dirty Projectors’ R&B inflected opus “Bitte Orca” at least once last year. Chances are you also tried to replicate the album’s stunning vocal lines, which, upon passing through your lips, mutated into the sound of LOL cats dying. You didn’t know this at the time however, on the count of the noise-canceling headphones you wear to avoid interacting with strangers. You also unequivocally loved this album and by “you” I mean “I” – but I’m sure others share my sentiment.
“Bitte Orca” was the kind of album that mapped the seemingly obvious synergies between Motown vocal harmonies, dissonant guitar lines and pitch-shifted experimentation. Some parts noodled endlessly like DP linchpin Dave Longstreth was testing your resolve. Some parts were so infectious it got the stoic plaid-set jerking and weaving to odd time signatures in dark rooms. Some parts eluded classification all together. This usually happened within the same song and transitioned in the most cohesive way possible.
While holed up in a Melbourne hotel room Pedestrian caught up with Dirty Projectors vocalist/guitarist Amber Coffman to discuss the band’s Australian tour thus far, the craziest week of her life and harmonizing with Solange Knowles .
Hi Amber how are you?
Good, how are you?
Not too bad – where are you at the moment?
We’re in Melbourne at our hotel.
What have you been up to today?
Not too much just hanging out and getting ready for the day.
Have any of you been to Australia before?
Not all of us, only a couple of people in the band. But not as a band, more like family vacations when they were kids so it’s our first time and it’s really exciting.
How have the shows gone so far?
Everyone’s been really awesome and really receptive so it’s been great.
So does this mark the end of the touring cycle for Bitte Orca?
Yeah, sort of. We’re doing a bunch of festivals then we might do one more US tour but we’re definitely getting close to the end of touring this album.
So have you started thinking about a new album?
There hasn’t been a lot of time for that but that’s definitely what we’ll focus on next – the next chapter.
And how does the songwriting process work? Is it all Dave or is it more democratic?
It’s definitely all Dave, Dave writes everything. He’s great. He doesn’t write a bad song (laughs) and everyone feels that way so it’s always exciting when the new ones come in.
Do you have scope to tweak material Dave gives you?
I don’t know. I mean, if someone’s feeling really strongly about a certain part they’ll bring it up. But we really just take his idea and help illustrate it and put it together as best we can.
I guess there’s more scope for collaboration with some of the people you’ve worked with like David Byrne and Bjork, for example. Can you tell us how those collaborations come about?
They were both instigated by other people like the David Byrne thing – some people were putting together that compilation and they had this idea for us to work with him. The Bjork thing was this guy Brandon Stosuy from Stereogum he knew her and he was putting this benefit show together and he had the idea that we should work together. It was kind of like we would know about each other before that and people would talk about us collaborating then it ends up happening and it seems really natural. And she was great, really awesome. Her voice is incredibly flawless obviously.
Solange Knowles also covered “Stillness Is The Move” then sung it with you live – were you guys aware that she was into your music?
I was aware that she was into a lot of bands that we know and she was friends with a couple of friends of ours. So I didn’t assume that she listened to our band but it wasn’t a huge surprise I guess (laughs).
And what was it like introducing that fourth female vocal into the mix?
Oh it was really fun. It was this really small room for this party and we figured out how to do it a couple of days before and it was really awesome. We figured out the vocal thing the same way it goes for anybody just sitting there and working it out so it was really fun.
I’ve heard so many people butcher that vocal line, including myself, and I imagine you must hear it all the time. What’s been the most surreal moment for you over the last few months
We’ve definitely done a lot of things that we could have only hoped for. Every tour has been on a different level to the last and we just keep experiencing new and exciting things and our lives have definitely transformed a lot since the year before so that’s definitely a little surreal. As far as a moment – maybe when The Roots played with us and David Byrne at the last show of our last US tour. Then that same week we were asked to sing backup for Mos Def on the Jimmy Fallon Show and then the next day we flew to Brazil. That was pretty crazy (laughs).
What do you attribute that rise to? Like what changed between Rise Above and Bitte Orca?
I don’t know. I mean there was a lot of momentum before Bitte Orca even came out that was built on Rise Above so it was just in our favour that Bitte Orca turned out as successful as it was. I definitely think that these songs were more, I don’t want to say positive, maybe more accessible than the ones before. The “Rise Above” songs definitely had this painful damaged quality that could be kind of intense sometimes. And I think that a lot of these songs on Bitte Orca are really fun and feel-good.
Was it weird for you to have your face on the cover?
Yeah, a little bit. But it was meaningful to Dave so I did it. But I don’t really know why – you’ll have to ask him.
From the outside looking in it seems like Dave has this kind of mad scientist vibe about him. How do you guys balance that relationship with him where it’s obviously his baby and his songs?
Being in bands is pretty hard – it’s like being in a really close relationship with everyone in the band so there’s a lot of work that has to be done. We’ve been through a lot together and it’s pretty amazing. We all know it’s amazing that we’re here and we’re grateful; for anything that comes our way. But I think that Dave just has the ability to get into this zone where it’s all an exploration and he definitely has his own style and sound. The recording process happens a little bit differently each time so maybe there’s something in that too that it’s always a journey.
And is this current six the permanent lineup or can we expect more members to pop up on the next album?
I can’t imagine more to be honest. I think it’s pretty solid as it is. With Rise Above we recorded that album as a six-piece, which was a different six-piece from now, then we toured that album as a four piece, myself, Dave Brian and Angel and then Nat and Haley came in for BItte Orca and it definitely felt pretty good when they came in. The energy definitely felt closer to what we were looking for. So there will definitely be little evolutions in the next album but who knows what they will be.
You can catch Dirty Projectors at the following dates:
09/03/2010 – The Hi Fi, Melbourne BUY TICKET
10/03/2010 – The Metro, Sydney BUY TICKET
13/03/2010 – The Rosemount Hotel, Perth BUY TICKET
Title Image Provided by Dirty Projectors
