I started listening to Dirty Projectors in a very round-about way. I was reading about something on Wikipedia and ended up drifting through endless pages, clicking on links I thought might be interesting. Somehow I ended up reading about the Dirty Projectors album Rise Above, in which Dave Longstreth recorded a bunch of covers of songs from Black Flag's Damaged. He claimed that Damaged was one of his favourite records as a teen and recorded the album entirely from memory despite not having listened to Damaged for 15 years (I doubt I've gone more than six months at a time without hearing someone cover Black Flag at some point, but maybe Dave moves in different circles to me!). Either way, I was quite intrigued by the project, and thought it would be worth checking out. A short while later, I was on holiday in America and bought the cd of Rise Above in Albums on the Hill in Boulder (along with a copy of Young Machetes by The Blood Brothers - the guy at the counter commented that the two albums made for an odd pairing).
Anyway, I enjoyed Rise Above and figured I should check Dirty Projectors out further. A year later my friend Aled and I saw the band play the upstairs room of Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff; it wasn't anywhere near sold out and they didn't even headline (I think they a long journey to the next venue so wanted to leave early) but they were excellent. I'd not heard any other songs of theirs but in that set there were some incredible tunes. They finished on a medley of Black Flag covers and I was pretty pleased with my accidental discovery. I bought another album (The Glad Fact, not my favourite) and then their new album at the time, Bitte Orca, when it came out a few months later. When I played the album, I was amazed; even though I'd only heard one proper album, it felt like this band had been on verge of getting everything right and on Bitte Orca it finally struck and they'd made an incredible record. All the best songs they'd played live were there and it was great to hear them again. I was pleased both for them as a band, but also for me as a listener. It seemed the internet agreed because their name started to appear everywhere.
I was so excited when the first song of Swing Lo Magellan appeared on the internet because I had that exact same feeling again. Gun Has No Trigger blew me away; it sounded like all of the bands best moments squeezed into a song that almost sounds like it belongs on the opening credits of a Bond movie. It was great to hear them write a song so brilliant. I picked up the album on cd after it came out and it's excellent too. Gun Has No Trigger is hands-down the highlight, but the opener, Offspring Are Blank, is another of their best. The whole album works well, but I'd be torn if you told be I had to choose a favourite between Bitte Orca and Swing Lo Magellan. It even made it to #7 in my top-ten albums of 2012.
This summer I went to the Independent Label Market in London and splashed out on a whole load of records (I'd just finally got a job after finishing my PhD and was keen to make up for lost record-buying time). I think the Domino records stall did the best out of me (although the Secretly Canadian stall also took a lot of my cash) as I picked up this copy of Swing Lo Magellan along with two Bonnie 'Prince' Billy LPs. I decided that it was enough of a classic to require a vinyl copy as well as the cd, and the fact that it was a limited run of 3000 copies probably also helped (mine is #2469). It's a pretty lovely package: the sleeve is embossed and included is lyric sheet with all the lyrics embossed (kinda like braille, but words). You can just about see it in the pictures below.
I've been thoroughly recommending Dirty Projectors to everyone since the last two records came out. When I saw them, I knew Aled would be into but had my doubts anyone else would. Even Hugh has a copy of Bitte Orca now, and they sold out The Roundhouse last time they played London. It's nice to see them doing well.
Format: 12", gatefold sleeve, 11"x22" lyric sheet, insert, numbered
Tracks: 12
Cost: £20 new
Bought: Independent Label Market, London
When: 13/07/13
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download card
