Dirty Projectors – Antone’s, 10/26/2009

Full admission: Dirty Projectors have not paid me to write this review. All the hyperbolic gushing you’ll find below is nothing more than sincere.

Well, they did it.

As much as I love Dirty Projectors, I had my doubts. Could they really do those things with their voices outside the studio? Could they weave them in and out of each other like so much brightly toned thread? Essentially: could they make it sound like the record? Now, that isn’t what you what from a show, the idea being you could have just slipped on headphones and saved the 15 bucks rather than stand, sweaty and cramped, smashed against strangers. But because Dirty Projectors operate on a post-human level of musicianship, they proved to be the exception to that rule. I wanted to hear them recreate impossible sounds. And they did.

Early in the set they launched into “Remade Horizon,” one of Bitte Orca’s most demanding songs (to my ear) for vocalists Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian. Performed live, Haley Dekle stepped up in place of Deradoorian to mirror (and subtly distort) the arpeggios coming from Coffman’s mouth. They alternated syllables in perfect time and with no shortness of breath, just like the record told me they would; it was beautiful. Truthfully, I felt more than a stab of nervousness watching them. What if they made a mistake? What if the finely oiled machine that was their voices came off track, what if the gears slipped and they fell away from each other like a Steve Reich tape loop? Would Dave Longstreth leave the stage? I’ve read that he’s quite the taskmaster, demanding insanely long rehearsals of all his bandmates. Stupidly, I found myself scared for Coffman and Dekle.

What a schmuck I am. Because they didn’t screw up. Serenely and with eyes closed, they made the music with their mouths. Despite Longstreth drawing out the song’s intro, they never faltered.

At no point did any aspect of the show falter. They held me in rapture from first to last note. I feel as if I’ll be living in the afterglow of the experience for weeks to come.

There’s so much more to say: the selections played from Rise Above, an album I feel a near religious-devotion toward; the sheer sexiness of this co-ed band; the full, dark mustache the bassist somehow stole from my father circa 1978; each angular guitar note simultaneously chinking and reaffirming the texture woven by all those voices. But really, words die in the face of art like this. So I’ll waste no more of them.

If you have the opportunity, see this band. That’s all I can say with confidence. Maybe everything else I’ve failed at.

RS