Dirty Projectors, David Longstreth & Stargaze – “Song of the Earth” (Released 4th April 2025)

Description

//Transgressive//

£28.99 – 2xLP, Limited Edition Vinyl

‘Song of the Earth’ marks Longstreth’s biggest-yet foray into the field of concert music.

Just as Dirty Projectors’ ‘Rise Above’ sounds nothing like ‘Damaged’ — the Black Flag album upon which it is based — ‘Song of the Earth’ bears little resemblance to its namesake, Gustav Mahler’s 1908 song-poem Das Lied Von Der Erde. But Longstreth notes that “it is saturated with the Mahler work’s themes, feelings and spirit of dissolved contradiction.” ‘Song of the Earth’ is performed by Longstreth with members of his band Dirty Projectors — Felicia Douglass, Maia Friedman, Olga Bell — and the Berlin-based chamber orchestra s t a r g a z e.

Tthe album also features Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie), Steve Lacy, Patrick Shiroishi, Anastasia Coope, Tim Bernardes, Ayoni, Portraits of Tracy, and the author, David Wallace-Wells.

Longstreth wrote the first draft in six manic weeks for a commission arranged by s t a r g a z e. He felt disoriented and also galvanized by the moment: the pandemic chaos, the ‘radical psychedelia’ of new fatherhood, the novelty of writing for large ensemble. Then he spent three years revising, rewriting, rearranging, and recording in studios and homes in the Netherlands, Los Angeles, and New York City.

Tracklisting:

1. Summer Light
2. Gimme Bread
3. At Home
4. Circled in Purple
5. Our Green Garden
6. Walk the Edge
7. Opposable Thumb
8. More Mania
9. Spiderweb at Water’s Edge
10. Mallet Hocket
11. So Blue the Lake
12. Dancing on our Eyelids
13. Same River Twice
14. Armfuls of Flowers
15. Twin Aspens
16. Uninhabitable Earth, Paragraph One
17. Kyrie / About My Day
18. Shifting Shalestones
19. Appetite
20. Bank On
21. Paper Birches, Whole Scroll
22. Raven Ascends
23. Blue of Dreaming
24. Raised Brow