Dirty Projectors
have made an album with Björk, which is obviously very exciting. Will that do?
Um, here's the DPs' Dave Longstreth to flesh it out - and little teaser clips
of the project are scattered around the text box. Over to Dave:
In April 2009, Brandon Stosuy from Stereogum.com asked me if we wanted to play
a benefit concert at a bookstore in New
York. I said yes. He asked Björk the same thing, and
she said yes. Then he asked us if we wanted to collaborate, and we said yes.
Björk asked me what we should do, and I said, "I don't know, I guess I'd
really love to write a bunch of new songs for us to sing together?" And
she said Yes.
That same month, Amber from Dirty Projectors was walking along a ridge on MountWittenberg,
north of San Francisco.
She was looking out at the ocean and saw a little family of whales, as you
sometimes do in April on the Northern California coast. I wrote some songs about it and sent them to Björk, who agreed to sing
the part of the mom whale. The songs became Mount Wittenberg Orca. Amber and
Angel and Haley sang the part of the kid whales, and I sang the part of Amber.
We sang all week long and learned the music just in time to perform it at the
bookstore on May 8th.
Then our album Bitte Orca came out and we went on tour forever. We finally got
a chance to record Wittenberg last month, almost exactly a year after we first sang it. We went into the Rare
Book Room in Brooklyn and rehearsed it for
three days, then we recorded it as quickly and as live as possible. We only
overdubbed lead vocals and a guitar solo.
Now we're making a website for it, which will be the only place you can buy it.
It's going be up June 30th (we are playing in Utrecht that day!) The music is going to be
$7, because there are seven songs. You can preorder now if you click here.
We've decided to give away all the money that Wittenberg generates to the project of
creating international marine protected areas. Only 1% of the oceans are
protected in any way and this is a huge problem. We're working with the
National Geographic Society to create areas of sustainability, so the oceans
don't end up like a giant poisonous corpse hugging the continents. You can
learn more about this project here.
We're so psyched about how this recording came out and hope you are too. Don't
listen on those tinny computer speakers -- put in on the stereo and blast dat
shiiiiiiiiii!!