HERE'S YET ANOTHER STUPID IDEA I WON'T SEE THROUGH. You, the reader(s?), will select a favoured literary classic that I (hopefully) haven't read (don't worry; I've read very few literary classics). You will then condense the opening into a dry sequence of facts, which I will attempt to transform into something resembling writing. (This is probably a bad and very egotistical idea, but don't let me know that.)
By way of example:
Buck Mulligan was at the top of the stairs. He had shaving equipment. He looked down the stairs and saw Stephen Dedalus. He shook his head. Stephen Dedalus was sleepy and cross. Buck Mulligan started shaving.
The man known as Buck Mulligan stood at the top of the staircase, a cut-throat razor in each hand and a shaving mirror hung around his neck on a silver chain. He cast his gaze downwards by increments, scrutinising each step in turn, as though he feared that he would miss some tiny detail--some discolouration or ball of lint whose omission might be to his disadvantage somewhere along the line. It was because of this that he took so long to see Stephen Dedalus, even though the other man was stood only six feet away from him. "Why! Dedalus! I didn't see you there! What a shock!" Mulligan shook his head, not knowing quite why. Dedalus glared at him disapprovingly; his puffy face betrayed a night of sleepless agony, but he said nothing. "Gee, I feel pretty shaken up. I think I might have a shave!" Mulligan waved his razors in the air, apeing the maneouvres of a fighting Chinaman. The blades came closer and closer to his jowly face; Dedalus, too horrified to look, averted his gaze. The next he knew, there was a cry, and the ample form of Mulligan was tumbling down the stairs towards him, metal flashing in his flailing hands.
Okay, I got carried away at the end there. Sorry.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
Friday, 26 June 2009
I thought it was about time I made good on that byline
Captain Finn was out in the forest hunting rabbits when he heard the cry. Two cries in fact: one from a woman and the other from a child. His keen robotic brain pinpointed their coordinates instantly, or at least so quickly as to make mention of the time lapse (0.000004 seconds) redundant—an inexcusable waste of words, perpetrated, no doubt, by a rank amateur of the storytelling art. His powerful robotic limbs carried him there in a trice, although there was still time for a vicar in Putney to finish boiling an egg (he had a twelve-minute head-start, to be fair). His exaggerated robotic sense of the absurd all but short-circuited at the sight that met his eyes: a woman and a child, naked but for crude daubs of blue paint, crying plaintively over the body of a man dressed as a koala dressed as a box of Rolling Stones’ seven-inches.
Captain Finn knew not what to do. As a wine-tasting robot he was unsurpassed: every part of his frame—each LED, circuit board, CPU processing unit, copper wire and right-angled bit of metal—was custom-built for the purpose of wine tasting. Had he been confronted at that moment with a glass of Beaujolais he would have felt right at robot home, but he was not; he was confronted with a woman and a child, naked but for crude daubs of blue paint, crying plaintively over the body of a man dressed as a koala dressed as a box of Rolling Stones’ seven-inches. This was quite a different order of fish kettle.
The woman and child seemed oblivious to his presence, probably because his Stealth Field was still active. He crept forward on his powerful robotic legs and grasped them both in his strong robotic arms. “Do not cry,” he said, “your companion is only resting.” He was not only resting; Captain Finn knew this, but he wished to make a positive impression on his new-found friends. The woman span around, a knife suddenly held in her weak human hand. “Who’s there?” she shouted, her voice trembling with both emotion and fear. Captain Finn backed away, not because he was afraid of the puny weapon, but simply to reassure its bearer. “I am Captain Finn. I am a robot and I am here to help you.” The woman looked confused. “Why can’t I see you?” The child grabbed her leg for comfort, but she shook him off. “My Stealth Field is active,” replied Captain Finn, with considerable grace.
It was at precisely that moment that a group of hunters intruded on the scene. “There they are!” shouted the biggest hunter, who was the leader (although this is only known to me through authorial omniscience, it could plausibly have been inferred by a stranger who had happened on the scene at the same or a similar time). He pointed at the woman and the child and the space where Captain Finn was—although he couldn’t see the latter, because of his Stealth Field—and waved the spear that he had in a threatening way. “Fucking fuckers!” he exclaimed. The other hunters, who were smaller than the biggest one, set upon their quarry like wild dogs on the scent of their quarry (which was not the same quarry in this instance, or the same scent). The woman and child began to run, not towards their pursuers but away from them; Captain Finn, who was far more experienced in some matters than others, remained calm and stationary.
Just as the hunters reached the spot where they didn’t know Captain Finn was standing because of the continued activity of his Stealth Field, the wine-tasting robot leapt into action. He first deactivated his Stealth Field so as to confront the hunters with his profound and terrifying—to any who crossed him—form, then began to spin his powerful robot arms around and around. The hunters were initially terrified, but their terror was quickly replaced by death or, in a few lucky cases, mere dismemberment. The biggest hunter, who was the leader, who had been too busy exhorting his men to advance to advance himself, looked on in disbelief as his cohorts were annihilated with consummate ease and no little aplomb. “Ahh!” he shouted, fear and also some confusion audible in the subtle vibrations of his voice. Rather than facing Captain Finn like a man, which is what he was in an anatomical sense, he fled, crying “I’ll remember you Captain Finn; I will have revenge!” (He knew it was Captain Finn because Captain Finn had said so at the very beginning of his attack.) “I hope not,” replied Captain Finn, his voice happening in a debonair way. “Now, where did that woman and that child get to?” He turned and went after them.
Captain Finn knew not what to do. As a wine-tasting robot he was unsurpassed: every part of his frame—each LED, circuit board, CPU processing unit, copper wire and right-angled bit of metal—was custom-built for the purpose of wine tasting. Had he been confronted at that moment with a glass of Beaujolais he would have felt right at robot home, but he was not; he was confronted with a woman and a child, naked but for crude daubs of blue paint, crying plaintively over the body of a man dressed as a koala dressed as a box of Rolling Stones’ seven-inches. This was quite a different order of fish kettle.
The woman and child seemed oblivious to his presence, probably because his Stealth Field was still active. He crept forward on his powerful robotic legs and grasped them both in his strong robotic arms. “Do not cry,” he said, “your companion is only resting.” He was not only resting; Captain Finn knew this, but he wished to make a positive impression on his new-found friends. The woman span around, a knife suddenly held in her weak human hand. “Who’s there?” she shouted, her voice trembling with both emotion and fear. Captain Finn backed away, not because he was afraid of the puny weapon, but simply to reassure its bearer. “I am Captain Finn. I am a robot and I am here to help you.” The woman looked confused. “Why can’t I see you?” The child grabbed her leg for comfort, but she shook him off. “My Stealth Field is active,” replied Captain Finn, with considerable grace.
It was at precisely that moment that a group of hunters intruded on the scene. “There they are!” shouted the biggest hunter, who was the leader (although this is only known to me through authorial omniscience, it could plausibly have been inferred by a stranger who had happened on the scene at the same or a similar time). He pointed at the woman and the child and the space where Captain Finn was—although he couldn’t see the latter, because of his Stealth Field—and waved the spear that he had in a threatening way. “Fucking fuckers!” he exclaimed. The other hunters, who were smaller than the biggest one, set upon their quarry like wild dogs on the scent of their quarry (which was not the same quarry in this instance, or the same scent). The woman and child began to run, not towards their pursuers but away from them; Captain Finn, who was far more experienced in some matters than others, remained calm and stationary.
Just as the hunters reached the spot where they didn’t know Captain Finn was standing because of the continued activity of his Stealth Field, the wine-tasting robot leapt into action. He first deactivated his Stealth Field so as to confront the hunters with his profound and terrifying—to any who crossed him—form, then began to spin his powerful robot arms around and around. The hunters were initially terrified, but their terror was quickly replaced by death or, in a few lucky cases, mere dismemberment. The biggest hunter, who was the leader, who had been too busy exhorting his men to advance to advance himself, looked on in disbelief as his cohorts were annihilated with consummate ease and no little aplomb. “Ahh!” he shouted, fear and also some confusion audible in the subtle vibrations of his voice. Rather than facing Captain Finn like a man, which is what he was in an anatomical sense, he fled, crying “I’ll remember you Captain Finn; I will have revenge!” (He knew it was Captain Finn because Captain Finn had said so at the very beginning of his attack.) “I hope not,” replied Captain Finn, his voice happening in a debonair way. “Now, where did that woman and that child get to?” He turned and went after them.
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Burn, Mr. Longstreth, burn.
The acerbic rock critic Dave Queen has been up to his customary mischief. Check out (what I take to be) his response to Dirty Projectors' Rise Above.
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Towards the fakery of everything: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Okay, so here's my latest gimmicky conceit: reviews of movies I haven't seen. Inspired? Why thank you.
Let's face it, we have all, at one time or another, launched into an impassioned diatribe against some absolutely revolting piece of "art" (be it cinematic, musical, literary); something so utterly, brazenly abhorrent that to witness it firsthand would constitute an irreversible violation of the senses, thereby compromising our ability to embark on a measured critical assessment. The books of Jeffrey Archer, the films of Michael Bay, the music of Celine Dion...need I say more?
To use a vulgar and wholly inappropriate sex-crime analogy (this is the first time Harry Knowles has directly influenced my writing), it's as though you're at a wild house party, fraternising with intimidating strangers. (Let's say, for the sake of disarming the misogynistic potential of this example, that you're the actor Ving Rhames.) Dressed in the most revealing outfit you own, you flirt drunkenly with everyone in sight. You consume unlabelled substances in bulk. You flail around and make suggestive comments about the hardness of your nipples. Finally, barely able to drool, you pass out in a darkened bedroom, only to awake in the midst of a satanic gangbang scenario. A serious-looking naked man is pinning you to the bed while his bearded, chuckling acolyte circles shark-like, running both commentary and videocamera with a mysterious competence. You lose consciousness again.
Imagine how you'd feel, come morning. Soiled, diminished, betrayed? But, behind it all, wouldn't there be a nagging sense of guilt? Didn't you bring it on yourself, in a sense? Right or wrong, this sentiment would cloud your judgement of your attackers, perhaps preventing you from forming a considered opinion of their crime.
That's why I won't watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: I don't want to cloud my judgement.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
There is a moment, presumably, in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (hereafter Tranf:Revo't'allen) in which an enormous CGI robot smashes through a building. The building is tall, or tallish, and it looks expensive (even by the standards of tall/ish buildings). Its loss will be sorely felt by those who worked/lived in and around it, should any of them survive, and yet its passing is treated as no more than an opportunity for a spectacular effect. (Judging from the trailer, it may even be one of the Pyramids, in which case substitute "worked/lived [...]" for "admired its form and regarded it as a powerful symbol of human artistry.")
That building, reader dearest, is cinema, the art form that defined the twentieth century. That robot, my beautiful darling, is Michael "Moneyshot" Bay, the man who has replaced the artistry of yesteryear with CGI robots that smash through buildings. (And before you say, "well, is it not clever and self-aware of him to render himself thus?" hear this: the symbolism is not intentional; only the robot and the smashing is. And the building.)
Over the probably about two hours of Tranf:Revo't'allen's running time many buildings are felled, and many robots rise in their place. Human actors get an occasional look in, presumably because there's some sort of cinematic bylaw--dating from Rooseveltian times--which stipulates that at least five percent of the action on screen must have a basis in the real world, but their only purpose is to offer a sense of scale, as with the little man-shaped silhouettes you get in the bottom corner of dinosaur illustrations.
Is this a glimpse of the future? Are living, breathing beings to be banished from the screen, replaced with mere facsimiles? Some would say there is more truth in this new model, that the illusion of reality in cinema is a pernicious falsehood. I say this: the agents of the illusion may change, but the illusion itself will remain. Imagine a world where Bumblebee is one of our most popular role models, and young people work thankless, unenriching jobs in order to raise the money to have themselves metalized and painted yellow. Imagine a world where the top pastime of the youth is smashing down walls with their heads, or perhaps punching through aircraft carriers.
What kind of a race are we becoming?
And who's going to employ all those out-of-work actors?
Let's face it, we have all, at one time or another, launched into an impassioned diatribe against some absolutely revolting piece of "art" (be it cinematic, musical, literary); something so utterly, brazenly abhorrent that to witness it firsthand would constitute an irreversible violation of the senses, thereby compromising our ability to embark on a measured critical assessment. The books of Jeffrey Archer, the films of Michael Bay, the music of Celine Dion...need I say more?
To use a vulgar and wholly inappropriate sex-crime analogy (this is the first time Harry Knowles has directly influenced my writing), it's as though you're at a wild house party, fraternising with intimidating strangers. (Let's say, for the sake of disarming the misogynistic potential of this example, that you're the actor Ving Rhames.) Dressed in the most revealing outfit you own, you flirt drunkenly with everyone in sight. You consume unlabelled substances in bulk. You flail around and make suggestive comments about the hardness of your nipples. Finally, barely able to drool, you pass out in a darkened bedroom, only to awake in the midst of a satanic gangbang scenario. A serious-looking naked man is pinning you to the bed while his bearded, chuckling acolyte circles shark-like, running both commentary and videocamera with a mysterious competence. You lose consciousness again.
Imagine how you'd feel, come morning. Soiled, diminished, betrayed? But, behind it all, wouldn't there be a nagging sense of guilt? Didn't you bring it on yourself, in a sense? Right or wrong, this sentiment would cloud your judgement of your attackers, perhaps preventing you from forming a considered opinion of their crime.
That's why I won't watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: I don't want to cloud my judgement.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
There is a moment, presumably, in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (hereafter Tranf:Revo't'allen) in which an enormous CGI robot smashes through a building. The building is tall, or tallish, and it looks expensive (even by the standards of tall/ish buildings). Its loss will be sorely felt by those who worked/lived in and around it, should any of them survive, and yet its passing is treated as no more than an opportunity for a spectacular effect. (Judging from the trailer, it may even be one of the Pyramids, in which case substitute "worked/lived [...]" for "admired its form and regarded it as a powerful symbol of human artistry.")
That building, reader dearest, is cinema, the art form that defined the twentieth century. That robot, my beautiful darling, is Michael "Moneyshot" Bay, the man who has replaced the artistry of yesteryear with CGI robots that smash through buildings. (And before you say, "well, is it not clever and self-aware of him to render himself thus?" hear this: the symbolism is not intentional; only the robot and the smashing is. And the building.)
Over the probably about two hours of Tranf:Revo't'allen's running time many buildings are felled, and many robots rise in their place. Human actors get an occasional look in, presumably because there's some sort of cinematic bylaw--dating from Rooseveltian times--which stipulates that at least five percent of the action on screen must have a basis in the real world, but their only purpose is to offer a sense of scale, as with the little man-shaped silhouettes you get in the bottom corner of dinosaur illustrations.
Is this a glimpse of the future? Are living, breathing beings to be banished from the screen, replaced with mere facsimiles? Some would say there is more truth in this new model, that the illusion of reality in cinema is a pernicious falsehood. I say this: the agents of the illusion may change, but the illusion itself will remain. Imagine a world where Bumblebee is one of our most popular role models, and young people work thankless, unenriching jobs in order to raise the money to have themselves metalized and painted yellow. Imagine a world where the top pastime of the youth is smashing down walls with their heads, or perhaps punching through aircraft carriers.
What kind of a race are we becoming?
And who's going to employ all those out-of-work actors?
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Robot future-world declared "not so bad"
Terminator Salvation is fine. I know, I know—I’m surprised myself. Thanks to the uniformly savage reviews, I was looking forward to an absolute cinematic debacle; it was going to be one of those films that mixes up a heady brew of OTT violence, eyeball-perforating visuals and terrifying apocalyptic themes, only to arrive at a compound whose overall effect is simply to instil a feeling of near-catatonic boredom in whoever consumes it (a.k.a Christopher Nolan Syndrome). That I was prepared for…what I actually got was a passable sci-fi action movie. In short, I was fooled by the hype.
Crucially, the story holds together fairly well. No doubt legions of fan boys (of the type you’ll find on IMDB forums complaining that the T700 at the beginning of the film has been mislabelled in the Official Companion as a T600) have already picked apart its numerous subtle inconsistencies, but I didn’t find anything particularly jarring. It’s true that some of the protagonists behave strangely in order to get the film from points A to B, but then you can’t act out-of-character when there isn’t a character to begin with. That’s just good old-fashioned economical film making.
It also helps that Marcus, the machine-man hybrid guy, is pretty likeable. Much more likeable than he has any right to be, in fact—the actor Sam Worthington manages a good mix of ruggedness and vulnerability that’s almost enough to make his under-developed back-story (“My brother and two cops are dead because of me,” The End) seem like an actual narrative device rather than simple laziness. And speaking of machine-man hybridity, why was this potentially great twist given away in the trailer? Nothing in the film explicitly points to his being a cyborg until the precise moment of revelation; it’s like somebody stepped in at the last minute and said “man-robots are totally in this year—you have to have one in the ad campaign.”
Crucially, the story holds together fairly well. No doubt legions of fan boys (of the type you’ll find on IMDB forums complaining that the T700 at the beginning of the film has been mislabelled in the Official Companion as a T600) have already picked apart its numerous subtle inconsistencies, but I didn’t find anything particularly jarring. It’s true that some of the protagonists behave strangely in order to get the film from points A to B, but then you can’t act out-of-character when there isn’t a character to begin with. That’s just good old-fashioned economical film making.
It also helps that Marcus, the machine-man hybrid guy, is pretty likeable. Much more likeable than he has any right to be, in fact—the actor Sam Worthington manages a good mix of ruggedness and vulnerability that’s almost enough to make his under-developed back-story (“My brother and two cops are dead because of me,” The End) seem like an actual narrative device rather than simple laziness. And speaking of machine-man hybridity, why was this potentially great twist given away in the trailer? Nothing in the film explicitly points to his being a cyborg until the precise moment of revelation; it’s like somebody stepped in at the last minute and said “man-robots are totally in this year—you have to have one in the ad campaign.”
Friday, 19 June 2009
Improve the paragraph below
And but so I was in Stockport College t'other day, checking out my friend R's* graduating exhibition while he printed a joke T-shirt. In order to do this (print the T-shirt) he had to photocopy the designs onto transparencies...and what should he find in the photocopier but a Literacy Worksheet.
"Improve the paragraph below:
The boy was alone in the cemetery. It was dark. It was gloomy. The boy saw something. He was scared. It was a vampire.*1 The vampire was chasing him. He was scared. The vampire caught him. The vampire bit him. He was dead."
Now, I think that's pretty good to begin with. It clearly belongs to the literary sub-genre identified by David Foster Wallace (in an article of 1987) as "ultra-minimalism"; meaning that it uses a superficial, fact-heavy mode with highly fragmented syntax as a means of breaking down its story into a set of cold, hard narrative objects. So far, so stylized.
But I like rising to challenges once in a while (the more banal the better), and so I've determined to set off on a Raymond Queneau-type quest to render this passage in as many different ways as I can think of. If anyone else fancies it (who am I kidding?), they can contribute too.
Number I (in the style of Edward Bulwer-Lytton)
It was a dark and gloomy night; the boy was alone in the cemetery (for it is here that our scene lies), looking about himself with great anxiety, fearing at every moment the impending transplantation of those dread figures of his imagination into yet more terrible corporeality. And though he was desperate to be out of the place, he found himself, as if by some fiendish hex, unable to move his feet; he was (in the parlance of the great unwashed) rooted to the spot.
All at once, his vision was blighted by a most foul aspect, a terrifying spectre of nightmare; in short, a vampire! The beast, though resembling a man in shape and dress, betrayed its inhumanity by its protrusive fangs, which dripped copiously with the blood of its last victim. It leapt at the boy, who, finding himself at last unbound, took to his heels with tremendous vigour.
The chase that ensued was most panic stricken. The boy, lacking the keen nighttime vision of his predator, stood little chance; he crashed from one tombstone into another, as though those already dead were conspiring to welcome him to their fold. Finally, he fell to the ground, cowering in the filthy undergrowth like a mere animal. The vampire loomed over him, blotting out what little of the moon's light there was to be cast upon the terrible scene; a dread cry rang out as he finally descended upon his prey.
His neck pierced, his life's blood drained, the boy succumbed to the dark and the gloom. He was alone once more.
*I.e. Roland. Roland Le Good. I have nothing to hide.
*1 There's an accompanying picture of a cutesy little-boy vampire. Bizarrely, he has no mouth.
"Improve the paragraph below:
The boy was alone in the cemetery. It was dark. It was gloomy. The boy saw something. He was scared. It was a vampire.*1 The vampire was chasing him. He was scared. The vampire caught him. The vampire bit him. He was dead."
Now, I think that's pretty good to begin with. It clearly belongs to the literary sub-genre identified by David Foster Wallace (in an article of 1987) as "ultra-minimalism"; meaning that it uses a superficial, fact-heavy mode with highly fragmented syntax as a means of breaking down its story into a set of cold, hard narrative objects. So far, so stylized.
But I like rising to challenges once in a while (the more banal the better), and so I've determined to set off on a Raymond Queneau-type quest to render this passage in as many different ways as I can think of. If anyone else fancies it (who am I kidding?), they can contribute too.
Number I (in the style of Edward Bulwer-Lytton)
It was a dark and gloomy night; the boy was alone in the cemetery (for it is here that our scene lies), looking about himself with great anxiety, fearing at every moment the impending transplantation of those dread figures of his imagination into yet more terrible corporeality. And though he was desperate to be out of the place, he found himself, as if by some fiendish hex, unable to move his feet; he was (in the parlance of the great unwashed) rooted to the spot.
All at once, his vision was blighted by a most foul aspect, a terrifying spectre of nightmare; in short, a vampire! The beast, though resembling a man in shape and dress, betrayed its inhumanity by its protrusive fangs, which dripped copiously with the blood of its last victim. It leapt at the boy, who, finding himself at last unbound, took to his heels with tremendous vigour.
The chase that ensued was most panic stricken. The boy, lacking the keen nighttime vision of his predator, stood little chance; he crashed from one tombstone into another, as though those already dead were conspiring to welcome him to their fold. Finally, he fell to the ground, cowering in the filthy undergrowth like a mere animal. The vampire loomed over him, blotting out what little of the moon's light there was to be cast upon the terrible scene; a dread cry rang out as he finally descended upon his prey.
His neck pierced, his life's blood drained, the boy succumbed to the dark and the gloom. He was alone once more.
*I.e. Roland. Roland Le Good. I have nothing to hide.
*1 There's an accompanying picture of a cutesy little-boy vampire. Bizarrely, he has no mouth.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Bitte Orca
2007’s Rise Above, the album of Black Flag “covers” that introduced Dirty Projectors into what I’m going cautiously to term the “indie mainstream,” was something of a departure for the band. One of the primary reasons for this was that, for the first time, it really was a band, rather than a catchall for the esoteric experiments of main-man Dave Longstreth. After four years of lo-fi folk, orchestral compositions and primitivist electronica, here was something that could basically be described as a rock record, presented by a group of likeminded collaborators; Longstreth was still the “musical director,” but his in/famous warble wasn’t the only voice anymore.
Bitte Orca is, in many respects, a logical continuation of Dirty Projectors Mark Two, even to the point that former backing-vocalists Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian get to sing lead. The new line-up (now featuring bassist Nat Baldwin and singer Haley Dekle) may be more expansive, but this change hasn’t come at the cost of the focus that distinguished Rise Above from Longstreth’s sprawling earlier projects, and the band still excels at the art rock/afrobeat/R&B* hybridism of its previous record. However, the thing that really works in Bitte Orca’s favour is its successful fusion of elements from across Dirty Projectors’ career.
This factor isn’t immediately obvious; the opening duo of “Cannibal Resource” and “Temecula Sunrise,” despite being unusually polished, wouldn’t have sounded out-of-place on Rise Above. That’s not quite true of “The Bride,” which is eerily reminiscent of something (I can’t seem to figure out what) from 2003’s patchy The Glad Fact, albeit much better recorded. It’s only with “Stillness Is the Move” and its contrasting partner-piece, “Two Doves,” that the new album really finds its own sound. These are the tracks on which Coffman and Deradoorian sing lead, and so, for the first time in Dirty Projectors’ history, Longstreth takes a back seat; conversely, both songs make excellent use of a string quartet, arranged cleverly so as to mimic the crude digital manipulations of 2005’s “glitch opera” The Getty Address.
This wedding of old and new constitutes Bitte Orca at its best. The album’s second half proceeds in an exploratory vein, with synths galore, programmed percussion, Sprechstimme and even some electric guitar solos; as though the magnificent dual centrepiece has persuaded the band to revisit its outré roots more thoroughly. The resulting music, although not quite as consistent as that which has gone before, seals the deal: where previous Dirty Projectors records showcased moments of genius invention, tempered (or augmented, if you were that really jealous sort of fan who covets mainstream inaccessibility) by excursions into cracked vocal gymnastics, grating discords and nigh-on-unfathomable arrangements, Bitte Orca manages to be brilliant, unique and accessible. Finally, Dirty Projectors have produced a document that captures their considerable talents; now the only excuse for not liking them is bad taste.
*Perhaps not a brilliant description, but it beats the Pitchfork Media article that referred to the band as “art jazz.”
Bitte Orca is, in many respects, a logical continuation of Dirty Projectors Mark Two, even to the point that former backing-vocalists Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian get to sing lead. The new line-up (now featuring bassist Nat Baldwin and singer Haley Dekle) may be more expansive, but this change hasn’t come at the cost of the focus that distinguished Rise Above from Longstreth’s sprawling earlier projects, and the band still excels at the art rock/afrobeat/R&B* hybridism of its previous record. However, the thing that really works in Bitte Orca’s favour is its successful fusion of elements from across Dirty Projectors’ career.
This factor isn’t immediately obvious; the opening duo of “Cannibal Resource” and “Temecula Sunrise,” despite being unusually polished, wouldn’t have sounded out-of-place on Rise Above. That’s not quite true of “The Bride,” which is eerily reminiscent of something (I can’t seem to figure out what) from 2003’s patchy The Glad Fact, albeit much better recorded. It’s only with “Stillness Is the Move” and its contrasting partner-piece, “Two Doves,” that the new album really finds its own sound. These are the tracks on which Coffman and Deradoorian sing lead, and so, for the first time in Dirty Projectors’ history, Longstreth takes a back seat; conversely, both songs make excellent use of a string quartet, arranged cleverly so as to mimic the crude digital manipulations of 2005’s “glitch opera” The Getty Address.
This wedding of old and new constitutes Bitte Orca at its best. The album’s second half proceeds in an exploratory vein, with synths galore, programmed percussion, Sprechstimme and even some electric guitar solos; as though the magnificent dual centrepiece has persuaded the band to revisit its outré roots more thoroughly. The resulting music, although not quite as consistent as that which has gone before, seals the deal: where previous Dirty Projectors records showcased moments of genius invention, tempered (or augmented, if you were that really jealous sort of fan who covets mainstream inaccessibility) by excursions into cracked vocal gymnastics, grating discords and nigh-on-unfathomable arrangements, Bitte Orca manages to be brilliant, unique and accessible. Finally, Dirty Projectors have produced a document that captures their considerable talents; now the only excuse for not liking them is bad taste.
*Perhaps not a brilliant description, but it beats the Pitchfork Media article that referred to the band as “art jazz.”
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