If there’s anyone who’s mastered the art of keeping their listeners on their toes, it’s David Longstreth of Dirty Projectors. With the band’s signature sound of tilted harmonies and controlled chaos, Longstreth contributed now-classics to the indie rock soundtrack of the 2010s. Now, he’s taking things to the next level with their latest album, Song of the Earth – a sprawling, genre-blending chamber work full of existential dread and life affirming celebration. Just the kind of ambitious, experimental project that feels right at home at the Long Center.
And we’re not the only ones who are stoked about this project. The Long Center, Fusebox Festival, and Austin Symphony Orchestra have teamed up to bring Song of the Earth to our very own Dell Hall for a one-night-only performance by Dirty Projectors and Austin Symphony Orchestra. Marking only the second time the piece has been performed since its debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, this show offers a rare opportunity to experience this work live (in a most particularly Austin fashion).
We caught up with David ahead of the show on April 16 to discuss the creation of Song of the Earth, and why it feels especially meaningful to bring it to life in Austin.
Welcome to Mid-Week Intermission! We usually like to ask folks for a song to go with their interview — anything come to mind? Maybe something off Song of the Earth?
DAVID: How about ‘Bank On’ from Song of the Earth?
Tell us about Song of the Earth. What makes this album different from other Dirty Projectors projects?
DAVID: Song of the Earth is wilder, quieter, and more abstract than any other Dirty Projectors album. Writing it was about pursuing a congruity between nature and musice — wilderness and melody — landscape and harmony.
If earlier Dirty Projectors albums were sort of Trojan Horses, smuggling weird and bold musical ideas into the ear of the listener on the gallop of a guitar-driven backbeat, Song of the Earth is simply a wild horse: rearing on two legs in front of a slate-gray ocean, shaking the dew from its unkempt mane, humid breath bursting from its nostrils in thick jets of steam in the crisp morning air.
We feel very lucky to have you bringing this performance to Austin after its debut in Los Angeles. What was behind the decision to bring this show here?
DAVID: Song of the Earth is the kind of album that takes a village to perform: specifically, the members of the village symphony orchestra. Austin raised its hand faster than anyone else — faster than Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Portland and New York.
It makes sense, because Austin is a city that’s caught on and supported my work, even as it’s changed in unexpected directions, for more than 20 years now. Austin is the home of Brian Sampson’s Western Vinyl record label, which released my first three albums. (At that time, I lived in the Brooklyn, that jeweled citadel of aughts-era hipsterdom, but it was Austin that put me on the map). Dirty Projectors signed to Domino Records after our SXSW performances in 2008. And Austin’s own Danny Reisch is a huge part of Song of the Earth — mixing, engineering, and co-producing some of it with me!
So Austin is a special place for Dirty Projectors, and we’re super psyched to be bringing this music to the Long Center. Song of the Earth is kind of an anthropocene landscape poem, and I can’t help but feel a real sympathy between the city and the song: the hugeness of it all, the never-ending sky, the rolling hills of the balcones escarpment, the inching traffic along Ben White Boulevard.
Everybody here at the LC is pretty excited about this show and to work with our friends at Fusebox and Austin Symphony Orchestra to present it.
What does it mean to you to have three Austin institutions joining together to make this premier a reality?
DAVID: It means a lot! Song of the Earth is the biggest and most complex Dirty Projectors album. It’s the hardest and most expensive one to stage. And in this time of both embattled arts funding and historic difficulty for mid-level indie bands to tour nationally, the fact that we’re all coming together to make this happen on the southern bank of the Colorado River is frankly heartening, inspiring, moving.
How does playing with different orchestras change the feel of each performance? What are you looking forward to about working with the Austin Symphony Orchestra?
DAVID: They say every orchestra has its own relationship to the swing of the conductor’s baton. Berlin, the seat of the old western European classical tradition, luxuriates way behind the beat. Los Angeles, with Hollywood’s tight correspondence of sound and image, is practically right on top of it. I’m curious about where Austin will live.
Thematically, Song of the Earth captures the intense beauty and terror of our natural world, and the role humans play in that dynamic. Can you share a bit of the inspiration behind creating an album centered around this?
DAVID:
Optomist
Here in the early-middle 21st century, it’s possible, if you squint, to glimpse a future in which humanity has evolved beyond the primitive and catastrophic mindset exemplified by the biblical exhortation to ‘go forth and subdue the earth.’
Realist
It’s so clear that we exist at all only by the conditional grace and generosity of this beautiful blue mother. The recognition is unavoidable that we must find a more symbiotic relationship with all these interconnected webs of life and natural systems.
Pessimist
The recognition is unavoidable, too, that we will not — are not — going to make these changes. That oil is an addiction, and we are all a bunch of landmen. That the sclerosis of entrenched infrastructure, and the interests that control it and profit from it, is deep and terminal.
Song of the Earth came out of a time in my life, living and raising up a baby in southern California in the first part of this decade, that this became the only thing I could write about.
While you’re in Austin… any favorite spots or things to do while you’re visiting?
DAVID: I wanna scope the big concrete curtain of the Mansfield Dam, maybe go for a walk in the wild basin and a quick spring dip in Barton Springs. Hitting some food parks and record-shopping at End of an Ear are also musts.
Thanks for the chat, David!
Be sure to grab your tickets for Dirty Projectors: Song of the Earth with Austin Symphony Orchestra on April 16.
At the Long Center, we’ve always got a new partnership or something cool we know you’ll want to check out! Find and follow us @longcenter on your social media platform of choice, and we’ll see you real soon.
