Review by Heather Phares
The prolific experimental pop collective the Dirty Projectors return with Slaves' Graves & Ballads, their third album in a year. Originally, the album was released as two EPs early in 2004, but despite the high-concept nature of each of the EPs, all of the songs fit together well, making the album cohesive as well as diverse. The first half of Slaves' Graves & Ballads features Dave Longstreth backed by a ten-piece chamber group he founded called the Orchestral Society for the Preservation of the Orchestra. While this could seem pretentious coming from many other artists, the sense of drama the chamber group brings to Longstreth's distinctive crooning and cryptic lyrics ("the way a logo is different from an icon") actually makes it more immediate than some of the Dirty Projectors' other music. The combination of the sweeping strings, woodwinds, and brass with Longstreth's small, keening voice throws each element into even sharper contrast. The mix of majesty and intimacy in songs like the oddly alert, anticipatory "On the Beach" and "Slaves' Graves" may be theatrical, but it's distinctly emotional too; "(Throw On) The Hazard Lights" and "Hazard Lights (Reprise)" recall the primitive grandeur of The Glow, Pt. 2-era Microphones, with even more fraying around the edges. As with all Dirty Projectors music, things feel like they're on the edge of collapse. Acoustic guitars waver between delicate plucking and atonal strumming, woodwinds recorded far into the red take on feedback-like qualities, percussion punctuates the songs at unexpected moments, and Longstreth's often-garbled warbling can tend to grate. Still, the orchestral arrangements on Slaves' Graves feel like a natural resting place for the Dirty Projectors' lyrical and musical voice. The second half of Slaves' Graves & Ballads takes a very different tack, stripping the arrangements down to mostly just Longstreth's voice and guitar, with the odd bit of playful multi-tracking here and there (which works especially well on the lovely pop of "Because Your Light Is Turning Green"). This approach isn't as immediately striking as Longstreth's earlier orchestral experiments, but it does highlight the strangely soulful, timeless feel of his melodies, especially on "A Labor More Restful," "Ladies, You Have Exiled Me," and "Obscure Wisdom" -- a song title that sums up Longstreth's aesthetic well. The Dirty Projectors are still something of an acquired taste, but Slaves' Graves & Ballads is proof enough that Longstreth's twists and turns are worth following.
The Dirty Projectors
Slaves' Graves and Ballads
[Western Vinyl; 2004]
Rating: 8.1
A popular theory among conspiracy theorists lately is that the Bush Administration's campaign in Iraq isn't a grab for oil or a grab for history, but rather an attempt at creating a so-called manageable chaos in the Middle East. It's hardly an unprecedented idea: By propping up a flimsy, illegitimate regime beholden to foreign interests, Iraq will mire in an insurrectionary climate, and our country will gain the justification it needs to continue its interference in the region. The paradox, of course, is that chaos, by definition, is highly unmanageable; inevitably, the contradiction doesn't always pan out, and ours is looking more and more like such a case.
If manageable chaos is what Bush and his cabal were angling for, they'd have been wise to take a page from The Dirty Projectors, whose songs consistently threaten to implode under the weight of their own ambitions, yet always manage to hold it together. Slaves' Graves and Ballads effortlessly executes a seemingly incoherent, unilateral agenda: Sole-songwriter Dave Longstreth is autodidactic minstrel who occasionally seems to be winging it. Luckily, The Dirty Projectors trade in theatrical folk, not the theater of war; the stakes are relatively low, and these 14 songs derive much of their sophistication from a calculated lack of order.
Slaves' Graves and Ballads is the harmonious wedding of two prior EPs released separately earlier this year. The albums are less complementary than they are starkly juxtaposed. The divergent A-side/B-side architecture provides a tidy stylistic contrast, as the ornate orchestration of the album's first half gives way to the demure acousticism of its back end. The record explores several naturally obscure reference points, resembling by turns Stars Like Fleas' shadowy epic Sun Lights Down the Fence, Devendra Banhart's indolent folk, and a Gilbert & Sullivan opera.
Throughout the record's first seven tracks, Longstreth is accompanied by the ten-piece First Orchestral Society for the Preservation of the Orchestra, a chamber music collective assembled by Longstreth himself. Fortunately, the panoply of classic instruments-- a readily bastardizable commodity-- isn't used as a convenient way to feign sophistication, but instead as a formidable melodic foundation. From the mesmeric marimba ostinato that inaugurates "Somberly, Kimberly", Slaves' Graves manages to avoid the cloying bravura typically implicit in orchestral pop music. "On the Beach", an easy standout, makes sly intimations at a central melody, introducing several motifs that come in and out of focus throughout the ensuing six tracks.
Generally, Longstreth is left to wander alone, leaving windswept salvos adrift over the orchestra's somber ruminations. His lyrics are unfailingly clever, turning pliable platitudes into weightier fodder. On the unassuming closer "Since I Opened" he intones, "When I start to feel this way/ I can only wonder/ What is this weather I'm under?" Elsewhere, he takes potshots at mundane scenes of modern degradation, sing/speaking, "The souped-up Honda is stalled in traffic on the roadside, burping their subwoof like a council of bullfrogs." Slaves' Graves is slathered in macabre imagery and dank timbres, but Longstreth's sultry drawl is dependably soothing and remarkably fluid. As dour and gray as the record may occasionally get, it's impossible to be sullen by music so boundlessly visceral. The ominous war drums behind "Grandfather's Hanging" do little to undercut the frail beauty of Longstreth's ambling vocals. Such unlikely triumph is par for course.
After the dulcet string and clarinet swells of "Hazard Lights (Reprise)" the album abruptly segues into the spare strumming of "A Labour More Restful", initiating Slaves' subdued second half. Longstreth's dainty guitar playing, previously hidden, is born forth, assuming a lead melodic role for the rest of the record. "Because Your Light Turns Green" features some surprisingly dexterous licks, recalling erstwhile noodlers John Fahey and Vini Reilly. The scaled-back, nocturnal second set is a refreshing but appropriate contrast to the heady arrangements of the opening act. Confused, incohesive and utterly lonely, Slaves' Graves and Ballads finds solace in its sadness. If only the Bush Administration were so gentle.
-Sam Ubl, June 17, 2004
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