The line on Dave Longstreth is that, under the guise of Dirty Projectors, he's comfortable with any genre, or at least he's an equal-opportunity dabbler. Spare, one-man acoustic songs, disjointed blues, melodic lo-fi indie, lush classical string arrangements, and bristling electro-- Longstreth's dived into all of it with equal aplomb. But if his last LP, Getty Address, showed off his ability for synthesis, he had yet to make an album on which he played it all.
That is, until the release of New Attitude, a once-tour-only EP that's now enjoying rebirth as a proper release. Several past modes of Projectors are revisited here, providing a peek at the seams in Longstreth's style, as well as one live track that gives fans a taste of what they might be missing at the band's increasingly stunning concerts. The record opens with "Fucked for Life"-- a pop track that does everything in its power to hide that it's a pop track-- with a bewildering call-and-response between Longstreth's caterwaul and the pluck of dusty acoustic strings. The opening multi-tracked wail brings a cold-water shock I often get when first reapproaching Dirty Projectors, but the ambling bassline soon affirms that something far more accessible lurks just beneath the surface.
"Two Sheep Asleep" uses much of the same instrumentation to a less compelling end, as Longstreth employs a strange, breathless yodel/grunt over more acoustic guitar and staccato synth stabs, here more percussive than melodic. But "Two Young Sheeps", the album's lone live cut, expands "Two Sheep Asleep" into an ecstatic exclamation of young love, with Longstreth shouting about "him and his girl" over the breezy, vaguely funky beat. Unfortunately, the gaiety of the electric piano and flute doesn't quite translate in its (roughly) recorded version, despite being a truly unencumbered moment and a smiling breath of relief.
Elsewhere, "Imagine It" features more hyper-deconstruction, as guitars loop and sputter while Longstreth switches on the falsetto to sound like a girl-group singing a 1950s radio jingle. Admittedly, much of the reason Longstreth draws attention is the power of his delightfully over-the-top voice, and there's not much showboating on New Attitude. Fans of Slaves' Graves and Ballads will appreciate the classically-minded "Likeness of Uncles" or "Darkened Car", where a suitably dramatic string chart plays second fiddle to the yearning and anguish in Longstreth's voice.
New Attitude does nothing to diminish Longstreth's singular talents, but even for a tour EP-- even for a Dirty Projectors tour EP-- this is pretty spotty. While the release is understandably more suited to those already familiar, it's worth keeping in mind that Projectors fans also have older, weirder releases to relish (Morning Better Last, for starters). I appreciate a more relaxed look at Longstreth's group, but the band could stand to apply that attitude to a stronger batch of songs somewhere down the line-- even if they've already moved on to something completely different.
