The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

It is next to impossible to define the sound of the
Dirty Projectors. As soon as one tries to put their finger on any sort of genre
or sound, it will have already transformed itself – either sonically or
lyrically – into something else entirely.

For David Longstreth, the songwriting genius behind
the Dirty Projectors, combining filthy lyrical imagery, Mariah Carey vocals, a
classical brass section, indie rock ethics, minimal techno, Wizard of Oz duets,
and hip-hop beats, is a seemingly effortless task.

Over the past decade, Longstreth has released over
ten LPs and EPs, all which prove that his band is everything that Dave Matthews
Band and the Magnetic Fields try to be – witty, daring, intelligent, honest,
weird; in other words, different. Swing Lo Magellan, maintains that
tradition, though in a somewhat more welcomed and accessible way.

However, Swing Lo is still bizarrely weird.
While for the first time the majority of songs are built around verse/chorus
song structures – and it feels as if Longstreth has tried to keep his
experimentation bound to structure – every song still sounds like a musical
experiment in itself.

The Dirty Projectors are a band of six who are more
or less based in Brooklyn, New York. However, in ten years the band has easily
gone through twenty members, and a rotating cast – Longstreth aside – simply
seems to be part of the essence of this band.

It’s difficult to define what each band member
specifically does because there’s no formula, and so individual roles often
change with each song. There is a huge variety of sounds – clapping, duets,
guitar riffs, eastern and western beats, digital effects – captured and
produced using both hi-fi and lo-fi means. Dirty Projectors have collaborated
with both Icelandic singer Björk, and new wave hero David Byrne of the Talking
Heads, which hints at the diversity of their styles and tastes.

The off kilter, catchy pop track ‘About to Die,’
evokes a weird, sort of dyslexic Maroon 5-type groove, whilst Longstreth
lyrically ponders: “How can I hope to seize the tablet of values and redact it?
Foolish, I know, but I’m about to die”, that is, unless he’s “already dead”.

The opening track ‘Offspring are Blank,’ plays with
the idea of species propagation, of fertile parents giving birth to blank
children. However, it’s delivered over hip-hop beats, r&b vocals and
pop-punk rock choruses.

There are also beautiful, guitar pop songs, such as
title track ‘Swing Lo Magellan,’ which combines acoustic guitar, beautiful
playful imagery, and a sense of wonder and adventure. But even with this simple
song, the production sneakily bombards the listener with two tracks
simultaneously. If listened to with headphones, one finds that that the right
speaker is delivering an acoustic, beat-less ballad, and the left speaker is a
bluesy, drum and bass groove; when combined, the magic is delivered.

However, just when one begins to grasp what this
album is all about, the punkish, dark, Pink Floyd-ish track ‘Maybe that was It’
comes as an exploration of what it would lyrically and sonically sound like to
come off LSD – confused and disoriented.

It is almost futile picking tracks off of this
record, as they’re all beautiful and unique in their own way. The current
single is ‘Gun Has No Trigger,’ but whatever the listener’s taste, there is
definitely something, somewhere on this record for everybody.

The name Swing Lo Magellan is a likely
reference to renowned explorer Ferdinand Magellan’s daring voyage under South
America, where he ‘swang lo’, becoming the first person to connect the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans. In a way, that is exactly what it sounds like Longstreth is
doing with this album: creating groundbreaking connections where most believed they
would and could never be made. Swing Lo Longstreth, Swing Lo.