Spent that past few days listening to Dirty Projector’s “Rise Above” on repeat. It’s always interesting to encounter an album that you are repulsed with on first listen, which then becomes something inspiring and astounding. I suppose this is because I didn’t quite realize what it was that Dave Longstreth and co’s project was all about.
I got the record used at AKA Music in Philly, cashing in on a gift certificate from a Weathervane Music benefit, featuring Twin Sister and Sharon Van Etten. It was a sweet concert, where we came away with some free used CD’s compliments of Weathervane. It felt good to feel like a consumer of music again. Most of us have grown somewhat unfamiliar with the experience. Sure, we consume music, but we’re not often consumers of music. We’re all like music Freegans. Which, ironically enough was an art invented and perfected by our artist-clergy class….
Anyway – the Dirty Projectors. For those unfamiliar with the Projectors, this album, released in 2007, is a conceptual re-imagining, re-arranging, re-composing of songs off of Black Flag’s 1981 album, “Damaged”. The words are the same, the songs are credited to Greg Ginn of Black Flag. Unlike lots of pop music we enjoy, this album prefers to go concept-first (though it certainly doesn’t end there.) You can’t really listen to it as a display of songwriting in the conventional sense – something I’m used to demanding of musicians. This is usually a starting point when evaluating the music of any artist.
When I first heard the record, I thought the songwriter was insane – I found his compositions convoluted, his instincts unfounded. However, when I understood what as so original, so simple yet revolutionary about his approach to (co-)songwriting – presenting his own craft as improvisational, conversational, arising from memory – it was difficult to distinguish between what was original and what wasn’t. And it didn’t matter. This 2007 album is a testament to how our demands of artists and composition are changing. I find this particular form to be breathtaking.
Check it out, I hope you come out with something good.
