Dirty Projectors are an experimental indie rock collective led by Dave Longstreth accompanied by a shifting cast of band members.
Longstreth's first album, The Graceful Fallen Mango, was released under his own name and introduced his distinctive arrangements of both lo-fi and hi-fi production. The next year Longstreth fully minted the "Dirty Projectors" moniker with the release of The Glad Fact on the Western Vinyl label. In 2005, the band released The Getty Address, a concept album about musician Don Henley that features extensive orchestral and choral accompaniment. The diverse, more stripped-down New Attitude EP followed in 2006 and featured inklings of the band's later vocal interplay and use of intricate guitar work reminiscent of Ali Farka Touré's.
In 2007 the band released Rise Above, an album of Black Flag songs as reimagined from memory. The album introduced the band's distinctive contrast between Longstreth's soaring vocals and the tight harmonies of Amber Coffman and Susanna Waiche (later replaced by Angel Deradoorian). In 2007 the band also performed songs from that album for a Take-Away Show acoustic video session shot by Vincent Moon.
Popularity: 5% [?]
The Alternates are an indie/experimental rock band from North Hollywood California and have been playing together for four years. With influences ranging from Radiohead to Neil Young, The Alternates have created very unique sound that cannot be mistaken for anyone else.
Home-recorded songs can feel incomplete whilst being as tantalizingly indicative as the sketches before a painting. The outlines, though interesting in their own respect, are not as satisfying as the finished version. Grizzly Bear, however, have approached song writing as a craft to master from their very first album, Horn of Plenty onwards. Enamored by how a song "reads", they were fully present from prologue to denouement even though singer/songwriter Edward Droste recorded them by himself in his Brooklyn bedroom. Fuelled by a bout of post-relationship inspiration, those first songs celebrated the creative liberation of the ProTools era. They explored the depths of break-ups through crystal-clear tones, field sounds and woozy, complex harmonies.
