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Compared to say Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue, or maybe
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Dirty Projectors and
Björk seem to be relatively obvious musical bedfellows. Both share a love of
musical experimentation, multi-faceted vocals and unorthodox rhythms
combined with an underlying pop sensibility, and have shifted
restlessly from project to project on creative résumés that encompass
everything from Black Flag cover albums to Inuit throat
singers.
Mount Wittenberg Orca had its genesis back in May 2009, when
Projectors front man Dave Longstreth was inspired to write the music
after a conversation with Björk about the small theatres in Italy
where opera was born in the 1500s. The end result was, somewhat
bafflingly, a concept album about whales, and was first performed
entirely unamplified in Manhattan bookstore Housing Works the
following month before being recorded in 2010 and sold as a download
from the website Mountwittenbergorca.com to benefit the National
Geographic Society. The album raised over US$40,000 to promote
sustainable ocean programs, and is now finally being made available as
a physical release.
So is it worth the wait? Well, yes and no. Predominantly a
vocals-only album, with only understated percussion and bass for
company most of the time, Mount Wittenberg Orca (named, incidentally,
after a Californian hiking destination and the Latin name for a killer
whale) is undoubtedly an impressive show case for the respective
talents of Longstreth, Björk and the Projectors’ triumvirate of female
singers - Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian and Haley Dekle. The
Icelandic icon shares lead duties with the Brooklynite’s languid
croon, but the other three vocalists certainly aren’t overlooked; in
fact, their shrill, often otherworldly harmonies are in many ways the
most distinctive ingredient, rather like the Trio Bulgarka on
Kate Bush’s The Sensual World album. Lyrically the songs are
also intriguingly eccentric, operating on the premise that the
performers are a group of whales singing to one another, with lines
like ‘beautiful mother up ahead of us/can you see us play inside the
waves’ typical of the prevailing marine imagery.
Mount Wittenberg Orca begins with Ocean, a series of wordless
sighs that slowly build in volume backed by what sounds like a
didgeridoo, before Björk joins the fray on the weirdly funky On And
Ever Onwards, arguably the collection’s highlight. She’s in typically
fine, playful voice, but it’s the accompaniment of the Dirty
Projectors girls that create the wonderful textures which make the
song so compelling, whether its oscillating gently in the background
or rising in unison for the call and response chorus. Longstreth
makes his first appearance on When The World Comes To An End, which
also features an unexpected guitar solo, and glides gracefully over
his softly cooing band mates on No Embrace. Yet it’s only on the last
song, the stately, elegant All We Are, that he and Björk finally duet
properly – and very lovely it is too.
Now for the downside – with just seven tracks clocking in at a
paltry 21 minutes, this quite simply isn’t a genuine full length album
and leaves the listener both enchanted and frustrated in equal
measure. There’s some fabulous ideas and real musical virtuosity on
show here, but they haven’t been given enough time and attention to
fully realise their potential. As an EP taster, Mount Wittenberg Orca
would have been great, but by positioning itself as the finished
article, one is left with the sense of an incomplete journey and a
wasted opportunity.
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Dirty Projectors + Björk MP3s or CDs
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