An eclectic indie rock ensemble hailing from New York, Dirty Projectors embody a series of paradoxes. Their recordings blend demanding structures with immediate appeal through memorable tunes, considered orchestrations, and refined vocal blends that incorporate abrupt genre pivots, jagged guitar lines, and words whose subjects occasionally oppose the accompanying sounds. Conceived by singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Dave Longstreth, the group first drew notice from indie listeners via the 2004 release Slaves' Graves and Ballads, while 2009's Bitte Orca marked a critical and commercial breakthrough that reached wider audiences. The 2017 album Dirty Projectors offered a starker, synth-driven statement shaped by a painful romantic split, and 2020's 5EPS gathered five EPs that showcased the unit in highly collaborative mode.
Emerging in 2002, Dirty Projectors originated from Longstreth's solo efforts; the tireless vocalist, writer, and guitarist steered the endeavor through four long-players during its opening three years, among them the ambitious concept piece The Getty Address. Rise Above, a 2007 collection of reinterpreted Black Flag material, generated substantial press coverage, and the Domino Records debut Bitte Orca became the ensemble's breakthrough, climbing to number 65 on the Billboard 200. Following a joint project with Björk, Longstreth ended both his creative partnership and romantic relationship with frequent collaborator Amber Coffman, prompting the introspective 2017 self-titled album. The band resumed its characteristic eccentric pop with added R&B and electronic hues on 2018's Lamp Lit Prose.
Dirty Projectors stem from Dave Longstreth, a onetime Yale attendee who departed campus to pursue one of the most productive and singular indie singer-songwriter paths of the early 2000s. Longstreth issued his debut, The Graceful Fallen Mango, under his own name in 2002 on This Heart Plays Records. Captured largely on four-track with assistance from peers in kindred acts including Wolf Colonel and Dear Nora, that record unveiled his singular croon alongside an equally distinctive method of arranging and producing at both lo-fi and hi-fi levels. While continuing to track material, Longstreth performed alongside contemporaries such as the Microphones, Bobby Birdman, and VVRSSNN (also known as Yume Bitsu's Adam Forkner). Forkner contributed to the follow-up The Glad Fact, the first issued under the Dirty Projectors banner and released on Western Vinyl in autumn 2003.
That effort was succeeded promptly by Morning Better Last!, drawn from three triple albums recorded across 2001 and 2002 and offered solely via the internet on States Rights. Slaves' Graves & Ballads, which Longstreth characterized as "a song-journey for me singing with a ten-piece chamber group called the Orchestral Society for the Preservation of the Orchestra," surfaced in early 2004 as a co-release on Western Vinyl and Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records. The 2005 full-length The Getty Address constituted a Don Henley-themed concept album, followed a year later by the New Attitude EP. Rise Above arrived in 2007 and reworked tracks from Black Flag's landmark hardcore punk record Damaged, while Bitte Orca emerged in 2009 containing some of the band's most approachable material to that point.
In 2010 the ensemble joined Björk for Mount Wittenberg Orca, an EP supporting the National Geographic Society Oceans Project that remained digital-only for a year before receiving CD and vinyl editions in 2011. Their subsequent studio album proper, Swing Lo Magellan, appeared in summer 2012. After parting from romantic partner and regular collaborator Amber Coffman, Longstreth discovered himself composing material addressing intimate matters in ways he had not previously explored. Those songs anchored Dirty Projectors' ninth album, issued in February 2017. The group followed with Lamp Lit Prose a year later; the set included appearances from HAIM, Fleet Foxes' Sam Pecknold, and ex-Vampire Weekend member Rostam, and its rollout was heralded by the lead single "Break-Thru."
December 2019 brought Sing the Melody, a live-in-the-studio collection capturing the road incarnation of the band delivering selections from the Lamp Lit Prose tour. Alongside six catalog numbers, the release included "Knotty Pine," co-written by Dave Longstreth with David Byrne, plus "FourFiveSeconds," the Rihanna/Kanye West/Paul McCartney hit that Longstreth helped compose and produce. March 2020 delivered the EP Windows Open, the initial installment of five planned for the year, each spotlighting a distinct artistic focus and a different band member on lead vocals. Dirty Projectors marked the expansive undertaking with 5EPs, released in November 2020, compiling the five vocal showcases—Windows Open, Flight Tower, Earth Crisis, Super João, and Ring Road—into a single package.
