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Dirty Projectors David Longstreth, the creative powerhouse behind US alt-rock darlings Dirty Projectors, talks Lamp Lit Prose

Totally absorbed in making music, Connecticut-born David Longstreth rarely ventured out of his dorm room at Yale University. His first album, The Graceful

Fallen Mango, written on a four-track in his brother’s basement, typified the experimental approach that would later come to feature on Dirty Projectors’ catalogue of criticallyacclaimed albums.

A restless and avid collaborator, Longstreth has worked alongside the likes of Bjork, Kanye West, David Byrne and Solange Knowles, while a rotating door policy has seen him enlist dozens of musicians to embellish his generic influences, ranging from electronic-based contemporary R&B to experimental rock and ‘glitch opera’.

For his ninth album, Lamp Lit Prose, Longstreth has gone back to basics. Following last year’s self-titled album, which featured a host of songwriting collaborations, the album opens a new chapter, bringing back guitars and intricate vocal harmonies, playfully cultivated in Longstreth’s recently constructed Los Angeles-based studio.

You’ve followed up the last Dirty Projectors album within 12 months. Did you have a lot of music left over from those previous sessions?

“I think it had more to do with building a studio in Los Angeles, because I control the means of production now. I didn’t want to go on tour for the self-titled record, so I kept on jamming in the studio, going to work every day and making stuff. It’s certainly been a good period for creating ideas for songs, melodies and arrangements.”

No doubt having a new studio is pretty inspiring in itself?

“Well it’s all right there. After years of touring, we had a lot of stuff in storage. I had a couple of guitars at home and there was a studio rig in our practice space. Now I have everything all in one place, so I can put a guitar through this or that pedal and re-amp it through an old weird Leslie rotating speaker that I bought in Portland 15 years ago.”

Last year’s album, Dirty Projectors, was very collaborative in a songwriting sense. Were you keen to be the sole creator again?

“With the self-titled record I wanted to throw out everything that I thought I knew about making Dirty Projectors music and start from a totally blank slate. I wrote the songs, but wanted to reach out to people, become a team member and build things in that way. The collaborations I’ve done with Solange Knowles, Kanye and Joanna Newsom were a cool chapter, but this new record marries that approach with how I’ve approached record-making in the past.”

Having worked with those artists you mention, can you identify ways in which they have improved you as a songwriter or producer?

“Yes, hugely. After the Dirty Projectors record Swing

LoMagellan I really felt like I needed to take a break. I spent a year or two just working on other people’s music, and to have that experience was really revitalising. Being in a different role within the same process gave me a much wider appreciation for what we’re doing when we get in a studio together. I wouldn’t be making the music that I’m making now without those experiences working with people like Solange and Kanye.”

For all those wannabe producers out there, would you recommend they test themselves through collaboration, in whatever form?

“Definitely, because what you also realise is that – although whatever beats, arrangements or harmonic elements you’re working on have got to be fucking cool – ultimately, it’s in service of a vision and a song. Solange was amazing to work with because she would let me work over in my room creating a rough version of a song that we’d come up with, then check it out and say, “yeah, but the song we’re making right now doesn’t go in that direction”, so I’d go back and work more towards her vision. It was similar with Kanye. I guess taking that back into my own world, it’s helpful to remember that at the top of a pyramid sits a song and all these other aspects have to serve that.”

For some, collaboration can be awkward if you’re used to writing on your own, but you’ve had so many band members in the past. Does this mean that you’ve always had a collaborative mindset?

“Yeah. I really enjoy the process of bringing people into the music I write. There’s definitely a level of, not only sonic character, but meaning, when you’re translating one idea into a brass or string quartet. Words can have different meanings depending on who’s singing them and the character of their voice. Particularly with voices and performed instruments, the music becomes denser and richer when people come together to make it.”

Having said that, Nat Baldwin and Mike Johnson have been mainstays of the group. Presumably, they bring something essential to Dirty Projectors?

“Mike is an amazing drummer. He’s a really versatile player who can play anything that I throw at him – even if I make a really crazy rhythmic pattern in the computer with some kind of irrational aspect to the feel. For example, if the snare is pulled weirdly ahead or the kick on the three is late as hell and in a weird pocket, he can learn and inhabit that loop. Nat is incredible too; he can play upright or electric. We have the Roland reissue series of the SH-01A and he’s been playing a lot of that live on the new material because it turns out that’s a great way to render those 808-type squarewave low-end sounds on DirtyProjectors and LampLitProse.”

The arrangements sound quite complex and, instrumentally, very interwoven. Do the tracks end up being very far removed from your original ideas?

“It’s a balance between needing to stay connected to the original spirit of the idea. Generally, I’m working on things alone. Whether working on chord progressions, rhythmic patterns or a horn or string arrangement, I like to be fairly reckless in allowing room to develop it, which is why mixing is such a hellish process because you have to get back into contact with that idea at the top of that pyramid. Hopefully, that process also allows some of the things you have discovered about the music along the way to breathe. That’s the trick of finishing something, because you have to find a different solution every single time.”

Can you give an example of that?

“I felt really excited about the last song on the record, (IWanna)FeelItAll, because I realised pretty late in the process that you could build these key changes into the song with Varispeed in Pro Tools. There’s two step-wise key changes in the song. The first third of the song, which is mainly brass arrangement, is down a step, the middle section is the key that the whole thing was recorded in and the last verse a step up. Allowing Varispeed to change the character of the instrument kind of made the brass arrangement in the first verse even woozier than we recorded it, and the tremolo strings of the last verse even more hyper and butterfly-like. This somewhat arbitrary technical discovery that I was playing around with ended up serving the character and journey of the song from beginning to end. I think that might be my favourite song on the album right now.”

Are there certain trademark elements of the Dirty Projectors sound that you intentionally try to keep?

“When it comes to trademark sounds and brand identity, I find that kind of thinking uncreative. I get claustrophobic when I have to hold those concepts in mind. I prefer to keep the canvas open and consider that anything is possible. I have certain characteristics as a writer and producer that will show through by default, so I’m not going to be the one to define that. If the music changes, that would represent growth or an evolution; anything else would have diminishing returns because you’d end up with a cartoon of a cartoon of a cartoon of what you were.”

Lamp Lit Prose is certainly one of your more immediately accessible albums, but has there been no effort from you to take things in that direction deliberately?

“Making an album can often be a torturous process. By the end of mixing, it’s like, “Oh my god I never want to hear this music ever again”. Then you have to tour that for a year or more. So, sometimes at the end of that process you want to do the exact opposite – throw everything out and reinvent the whole way that you do things. A by-product of the self-titled record is that I didn’t come at LampLit

Prose with that angst, I was building off what I learned as a producer on the DirtyProjectors, still in that flow – taking what I know and throwing it all together.”

Last year, you relocated to Los Angeles and built a recording studio. What was it that precipitated that move?

“I had been in New York for almost 10 years and was just ready for a change of scene. A lot of writing and production was done in LA, so one day when I wasn’t up to much I drove around looking for a space to work in. I ended up finding one that would work really well for doing that, signed the lease and suddenly thought, I guess I’m moving to Los Angeles! As a songwriter, I’d been of the mind that I can do what I do anywhere, whether using a MIDI controller or guitar in my bedroom or at the back of the tour bus. Songwriting is something that happens in your mind, but it turns out that having a dedicated place to go where all your shit is set up and just right there is, lo and behold, really helpful.”

Did you have a lot of gear ready to move in or was it a case of, ‘Here’s a space, let’s fill it with those things I’ve always wanted to’?

“A little bit of both. I guess the main acquisitions that I got when I had the space for it were a baby

“It turns out having a dedicated place to go where all your shit is set up is really helpful ”

grand piano from the 1920s, a beautiful Rhodes and the Wurlitzer. More on the self-titled record, but a little on this one too, there were songs that originated on the keyboard, and the new studio probably had something to do with that because these days I’m usually writing on the piano or making a beat in the edit window of Pro Tools and freestyling melodies over it.”

The track Break-Thru has some really weird guitar strokes. What was your technique?

“That’s actually a Wurlitzer put through a fuzz pedal and then pitchshifted with a DigiTech Whammy – which is a classic, pitchshifting ‘90s guitar pedal. It’s much-loved and has a very unique character with a graded volume pedal-style thing, so you can control the pitch of whatever you’re playing through it. Most people don’t know what that sound is, but it’s pretty crazy.”

Generally, the guitar tends to sound quite raw and untreated on this record?

“With guitars, I almost feel like the same about them as my buddy Chris Taylor – from Grizzly Bear, who produces their records and is also an incredible chef. We worked on a record a long time ago and he was constantly making these analogies between cooking, mixing and production. In this instance, I didn’t think I needed to cook the guitars very much. I really like to preserve the rawness and original identity of them – whether I’m using an acoustic or electric guitar. There’s not much processing on the guitars usually; I prefer to just use the amp, the room as well as the sound of the instrument itself.”

Do you have a lifetime attachment to your guitars, like so many rock stars do?

“Yes, I have a couple. I have one funny ’90s Stratocaster that I bought off my friend a really long time ago. It’s been my only touring guitar for a whole bunch of years, and I still love it when I’m going for that goofy ’90s strat sound. Then I have a 1959 Epiphone Cortez acoustic guitar that I love the sound of so much. Most of the acoustics I record are made with that guitar, but I’m still looking for my Les Paul. When I’m going for that really powerful, driven Les Paul-type of sound, I’ve always had to borrow instruments over the years.”

You mentioned the track (I Wanna) Feel It All, which has a romantic, orchestral feel. What was it like working with the Calder Quartet?

“In the early stages of making this record, I had a number of songs that seemed to fit together in terms of their overall vibe. Almost as a generative thing, making more ideas or discovering different corners of the chord progressions or melodies, I’ll sometimes write arrangements for songs that I may or may not record. (IWanna)FeelItAll was one where I made a brass and string quartet arrangement and liked what I did – because it didn’t sound super-clunky, but cool. Then I wanted to record it with the Calder Quarter. I’ve been working with them for a couple of years now because they’re awesome: really fast-working.”

It’s hard to differentiate between the electronic and acoustic sounds on your records. Is that deliberate or does it simply demonstrate how the two worlds are getting ever closer?

“I think both are true. The process of making the last two records has been very similar. Any differences are more in the character of each record, which led me towards the eventual sounds used and how they’re different. The self-titled record has some emotional devastation, solitude and alienation, so a lot of the rhythmic patterns were recorded using weird wood blocks and pieces of metal that were performed by an amazing percussionist called Mauro Refosco, who remade patterns that I had created on the computer. In keeping with this feeling of separation and loneliness, it felt appropriate to have everything dry, dead, shrink-wrapped and very crisp in the placement of sounds on the stereo spectrum – because of that, everything ended up feeling super-electronic. I guess that’s why the two records sound really different, despite being made with similar sounds. Mauro played a tonne on the new record too, but this time we put those sounds in a space using reverb and a little room mic. There’s a lot of Rhodes, Wurlitzer and horns on those records, so I think what you’re saying is true, the binary between electronic music and performed

“I’ll sometimes write arrangements for songs that I may or may not record”

music doesn’t need to exist anymore. It’s more of a feeling than anything else.”

Do you find that brass sounds can often sound really bad in a computer if they’re not being treated well?

“I know what you mean. There are Juno sounds that are beautiful and have their own provenance. Despite being fake ‘80s brass sounds, they’re rich and have a lot of feeling and association. So far, that hasn’t really been my palette. Using synth strings and synth brass is a world, but a totally different one to using the actual instruments themselves, particularly on LampLitProse, which I wanted to feel like a community of musicians. It just felt right to have actual players doing it. Todd Simon is an amazing trumpeter who can play any brass

“I’m a tweaker and want to be able to refine and change sounds up until the last moment”

instrument, whether it’s the cornet, trumpet, flugelhorn or euphonium. Tracy Wannomae is an amazing sax and reed player, and I love the way that Juliane Gralle wails on the bass trombone.”

You mentioned the Roland Juno-106; is that your only hardware synth?

“I have a Juno-106, and as we got into translating songs for the live stage, we got that vintage series SH-101 that I mentioned earlier. But, generally, I go for the soft synths. I like using UAD Moog plugins and some of the Arturia stuff – because I’m a tweaker and want to be able to refine and change sounds up until the last moment – but that might change in the future. Live, we’re using the Critter & Guitari Pocket Piano, which I really love, and the Teenage Engineering OP-1. I feel like it would be really exciting to bring those into the studio next time. I guess in terms of using modern synth sounds, I tend to use deconstructive processes within the DAW and damage sounds using different plugins within the edit window itself.”

Has Pro Tools always been your favoured DAW?

“The earliest Dirty Projectors records were made on four-track and eight-track cassette, which I was doing until 2003. Then I stumbled on a free version of Pro Tools that had eight tracks, so starting from

TheGettyAddress in 2005, I’ve used Pro Tools. It’s just what I know, so it’s faster for me to use.”

We read that you used a 3D printer sound from YouTube, run through a guitar amp? Are you big on sampling?

“The last two records, yes, especially on Dirty

Projectors where I explored the boundaries of noise in a musical way. I tried to find pieces of noise, like an inkjet printer, and pitched them to the key I was working in and pitchshifting layers on top of themselves to harmonise the sound in the same way you would harmonise a brass section or vocal choir. I really got into that and hope to do it more.”