THE DIRTY PROJECTORS – BITTE ORCA

Bitte Orca is a beautiful, difficult, and ultimately rewarding album. Like much avant-guarde rock music (Deerhoof being perhaps the closest contemporary reference), it’s impressionistic first and meaningful second: Longstreth, the primary songwriter, is given to a lot of phatic nonsense lyricism – the phrase “Bitte Orca”, for example, sounds fun when sung but means nothing; similarly, you don’t need to know what a Temecula Sunrise is to appreciate the song’s bitter-sweet suburban angst – and his voice has its pleasures, winding deftly around his obtuse guitar-playing. But it’s female voices that make this album shine. Newly-minted members Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian both have a track each, and their ever-present backing parts are controlled soprano detonation exercises, instruments in their own right. Some listeners might be turned off by the Projectors’ penchant for melodic pretension and impenetrable obscurity – dense poly-rhythms and abrupt shifts of tempo and time are signature moves – but opposed to their previous offering Rise Above (2007), where each elusive trajectory only led to another, Bitte Orca rewards the patient listener with cathartic release (try multi-part epic Useful Chamber), shimmering vocal breakdowns (Coffman’s ultra-groovy Stillness is the Move) and some rather tasteful, screwball guitar solos (on the lovely late-album pop moment, No Intention); joyous avant-rock.

****1/2