Live Review: Dirty Projectors at the Independent

Dirty Projectors at The Independent
By Oscar Medina
Photos by Christopher Musgrave
April 11, 2008

The Brooklyn avant-pop outfit Dirty Projectors brought their art damaged pop tomes to the Independent last night to promote their latest record “Rise Above,” an album that has confounded critics and listeners alike with it’s oblique combination of disparate strands of musical DNA, referencing everything from Congolese pop to the work of Gustav Mahler to early R n’ B and Soul.

What began for lead singer/guitarist David Longstreth as an encounter with an empty cassette case of Black Flag’s classic “Damaged” record turned into the basic building blocks of “Rise Above.”

On stage, The Dirty Projectors emanate an affable, casual simplicity that in no way resembles the music they make. Playing a set culled largely from “Rise Above” and the earlier EPs, their songs veered from operatic-tinged math rock, to afro-pop, to a wildly skewed take on indie-rock.

The Dirty Projectors, for all their musical cross-referencing that can easily come across to many as simply post-modern posturing, actually do in fact ROCK. In listening to the record one can be easily deceived into believing that their live show would be the equivalent of an soporific art school exhibit but it is quite the opposite.

For the unabashed mess that many may call their music, their live show is an exhilarating exercise of balance and proportion, pathos and energy. Songs careen forward and sideways, tease out subtle movements between the vocal counterpoint of Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian, and the latticed guitar work of Longstreth. Longstreth resembles a young wiry David Byrne, clad in a black hoodie and dark jeans, his left hand would spasmodically work up and down the neck of his guitar, emanating modal guitar squalls that intersected with Brian McComber’s frantic drum rhythms.

The crowd responded well to the Projectors’ sudden and wild explorations into the less structured side of their songs. Why ? Well, for all their forays into post-punk avant garde jam suites they would return to form with plaintive pop harmonies and structured melodic hooks.

The impressive part of their process is that the music remains staunchly inventive, their curiosity is palpable as evinced by the fact that you can never really predict where the songs will go. What may start off as pleasant gossamer indie-pop, will suddenly move into clanging industrial no-wave yelps, all within the same song and done in a way that sounded as if mixing these things were the most natural thing in the world. Usually bands that play the genre-bending card either compromise the original sources, or fall into the trap of xeroxing their influences so that it prevents any form of original musical expression. The Dirty Projectors have found a way to eschew both traps by simply not caring; but by simply allowing the songs to breathe naturally and take themselves where they need to be taken.

Live Review : Rza at the Independent

By Oscar Medina

An embattled RZA celebrated the release of the new Wu Tang 8 Diagrams record with a sold-out performance last night at the Independent that proved to some that RZA has gone straight crazy while to others that he is and and will remain an innovative force in hip-hop. With the recent scathing remarks by fellow hustler Raekwon calling RZA “a hip-hop hippie” and Ghostface’s equally disgruntled “he’s fumbling the ball”, you could tell after last night’s performance that the RZA is no longer holding back, for better or for worse.

Walking into the Independent last night you’d think you just walked into the Cannabis Cup because the clouds of smoke emitting from that place was enough to give anyone permabake. Ren the Vinyl Archaeologist was dropping classic hip-hop jointz, getting people riled up for RZA’s imminent appearance. What he had in store for them was not what many had expected.

Donning a khaki suit with Japanese designs and a white tennis headband, the RZA came full force with a band that consisted of a live drummer, bass, guitar, percussion, and a DJ who held it down for the rest of the night. Launching into a set that began with sound effects from an Ennio Morricone score, the RZA’s group played a medley of tracks from his Bobby Digital alter ego to classic Wu Tang material.

What impressed and shocked many was his liberal use of guitar in the performance, at times sounding like a funky mix of Hendrix and Maggot Brain-era P- Funk. Local promoter Damon Johnson called it “a betrayal of everything hip-hop stands for” and said that the RZA has “gone white,” while drummer Terence Howard said “that’s the reason I’ve always respected RZA, because he always reinvents himself.” Whatever your view may be of RZA’s new-found love for rock and psychedelia, this is not the first time a prominent hip-hop artist has flirted with a rock band set up, Mos has done it, and Run-DMC practically laid the groundwork for this template.

By the middle of the set, it was obvious that some didn’t feel the whole rock/jamming element of RZA’s band and slowly filed out of what for them was a disappointing show. As I talked with a few of those early casualties, they all echoed the same sentiment, basically that they expected a traditional DJ and mic setup and a hope that a few Wu members would show up for an impromptu appearance; instead what they got was a full-on arsenal of blues-funk-rock-tinged versions of RZA’s discography.

To those haters, I have to ask: What else do you expect from a man who mastered the whole soul-funk-samples-with-gritty-breaks paradigm a decade ago? You’d have to be crazy to believe that someone who has successfully composed film scores, was a mastermind behind some of the most lauded solo hip-hop records ( Liquid Swords, Only Built for Cuban Linx, Tical) not to mention the Wu’s output, makes haphazard artistic decisions. No, everything with this man is calculated down to the last detail, and last night was no different.

For those in the other camp, the show was exactly the reason that they will continue to support RZA’s vision, namely because it breaks with hip-hop purism and envisions something broader. The crowd who stuck around was treated to an unhinged RZA as he marauded across the stage, singing and rapping. At one point he busted open a bottle of champagne and sprayed the people around him while later pouring whiskey from his bottle into some of the audience’s cups. As the set closed with “Wu Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta Fuck Wit” the mood was bittersweet, as you just knew the record released yesterday is the last we will get to hear of the WU.

SF Weekly

December 12, 2007.