The Musicgoer: Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca

DIRTY PROJECTORS
Bitte Orca
(Domino)
**** (out of 5)

One of the great crutches of the music critic is to describe a band’s sound by invoking other bands that sound a little bit like them: “It’s Beck meets Burial,” we might say, or “It’s like Cat Power and They Might Be Giants had a baby.” Toss of a few dozen words about the tracks we like best, and we’re done for the day.

Well, Brooklyn avant-indie popsters Dirty Projectors have kicked those comfortable crutches out from under me. It’s not that their album Bitte Orca doesn’t have moments that recall other bands — at times, they sound like everything from vintage Nico (the gentle “Two Doves” even half-quotes “These Days”) to Arthur Russell to the trust-fund Africanisms of Vampire Weekend (especially on “No Intentions,” where songwriter David Longstreth does this beautiful guitar hook that’s so intricate it sounds like something you’d more likely hear on a harp). It’s that just when you think you’ve spotted an influence, the band has already moved onto some fresh new melodic idea.

It’s a fascinating album to listen to, and I can’t get enough of those otherworldly harmonies of Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian that seem like pure sound — all diaphragm, no lung. At the same time, it’s a disc that holds you at arm’s length — Longstreth’s lyrics keep referring to sunrises, horizons, “fluorescent half-domes” faraway in the distance. I wanted a few more songs about things I can touch.