After uniting for a benefit concert in NYC last year, the incomparable voices of Brooklyn noisesmiths Dirty Projectors and Icelandic songstress Bjork will now share a physical release in Mount Wittenberg Orca a newly unveiled seven track EP slated for release June 30.
In a letter to the folks at Stereogum (who organized the union in the first place) Dirty Projectors frontman Dave Longstreth explained the whale-inspired genesis of the project:
In April 2009, Brandon Stosuy from Stereogum.com asked me if we wanted to play a benefit concert at a bookstore in New York. I said yes. He asked Björk the same thing, and she said yes. Then he asked us if we wanted to collaborate, and we said yes. Björk asked me what we should do, and I said, “I don’t know, I guess I’d really love to write a bunch of new songs for us to sing together?” And she said Yes.
That same month, Amber from Dirty Projectors was walking along a ridge on Mount Wittenberg, north of San Francisco. She was looking out at the ocean and saw a little family of whales, as you sometimes do in April on the Northern California coast. I wrote some songs about it and sent them to Björk, who agreed to sing the part of the mom whale. The songs became Mount Wittenberg Orca. Amber and Angel and Haley sang the part of the kid whales, and I sang the part of Amber. We sang all week long and learned the music just in time to perform it at the bookstore on May 8th.
Fittingly all Mount Wittenberg Orca proceeds will go toward the creation of international marine protected areas. Check out the EP’s Matthew Lessner Directed teaser clips below, comprised of the dissonant buzz of a vuvuzela, the sweeping beauty of the environment and the bouyant yelps of DP’s harmonizing female cohort.
