Bitte Orca

How does one keep up with new music these days? It used to be simple, back when I was a kid--I listened to top 40 radio. In those days, top 40 stations played everything. You could hear Elton John, James Brown, or the Captain and Tenille with ten minutes. There wasn't the great sorting that there is now, with everything in its own cubbyhole. Today terrestrial music radio is practically unlistenable, unless you have extremely narrow interests in oldies, country, hip-hop or what have you.

I have a satellite radio, and there are new music stations, such as XMU, which mimics a college radio station. When I listen to it I enjoy it, but I don't find it a good way to discover new bands, mostly because I only have it in the car. It would require listening for hours on end to get a sense of what I like.

Of course MTV is no use to me anymore. I have fond memories of the early 90s when I taped 120 Minutes, which was on Sunday nights at midnight, and played it back when I was awake. I found out about a lot of great bands that way, such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, etc.

So today I rely on reading about music, which is problematic when you can't actually hear the songs. I subscribed to CMJ for a while, which had the benefit of including a CD in each issue, but they were kind of bad about sending out the magazine on a regular basis (do they even have a print edition anymore?) This tends to lead me to wallow in the music of my youth, which is familiar and comfortable, but I have a desperate urge to keep current, and not be one of those people who have no idea who the great new bands are.

Just a few weeks ago I was itching to get some new music, so I decided to drive into Princeton and visit the Princeton Record Exchange, a glorious throwback to record shops of old. They have a wide selection, including vinyl, and you'd have to spend a couple of hours going through their wall of used CDs. They are staffed by the kind of people you want to see in record stores: goth girls with tattoos, and scruffy guys of indeterminate age who wear t-shirts from obscure bands, like Mission of Burma. Right near the checkout counter is a rack devoted to new releases. So I walked in the store and was determined to leave with something new. I saw a CD by Dirty Projectors, and I recalled reading good things about them somewhere, so I made the leap.

The name of the album is Bitte Orca, and after several listens I've come to like it very much. Dirty Projectors are one of those bands that are category-defying, but I think it's instructive to learn that they have collaborated with David Byrne and Bjork, because there music shares the same of sense of experimentation and adventure as those two artists. They are in the vast province of rock and roll, but on the fringes, where the avant-garde kids hang out.

Dirty Projectors are fronted by David Longstreth, who wrote all of the songs (one of them was co-written with Amber Coffman) and sings lead vocal on seven of the nine tracks. The songs have a sunny joie de vivre, though I'm not sure what they're about, as there is no lyric sheet and I have trouble making words out as my hearing diminishes. The song titles are enigmatic, like "Cannibal Resource" and "Fluorescent Half Dome."

The music ranges through many styles, with some acoustic with string accompaniment, and some electronica that sounds as if they came from another planet. Some times these songs are brilliantly juxtaposed: the beautiful "Two Doves," which just may be the most gorgeous new song I've heard this year, is immediately followed by the other-wordly "Useful Chamber."

"Two Doves" is not sung by Longstreth and neither is my other favorite song on the disc, "Stillness Is the Move." Both are sung by one of the females in the group (not sure which one, as they have two). Longstreth has a high vibrato that is kind of annoying. "Stillness Is the Move" is a gas, with some Afro-Caribbean influences (it could have had a home on Talking Heads' Remain in Light, to tie it back to David Byrne) and gets me boppin' my head along with the rhythm.

So I think I'll try the Princeton Record Exchange experiment again in a week or two, and see what other new stuff I can discover.