More New Sounds

Another reason for the health of popular music in 2009 has been the nearly unprecedented level of cooperation and collaboration among the artists. The concept of the band as a tight-knit collection of individuals who perform together exclusively is quickly fading. The idea never existed in jazz, where it seems that everybody played with everybody else at one point or another, but it has been a fundamental rule of rock music. Today, however, it seems that many musicians see no problem at all with simultaneously being in several different bands while having a handful of solo and side projects, while also performing together in other bands as the occasion arises.

A good example of this is the Dirty Projectors collaborations this year with the hip-hop ensemble The Roots. The Dirty Projectors are a Brooklyn-based band led by Dave Longstreth, who plays guitar in a sort of Afro-pop manner, with vocals by Longstreth and Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian and Haley Dekle. Together, they employ a singing style known as hocketing, a technique that stretches back to the work of 13th Century French monks. As explained by Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker, "To hocket, you split up a melody or chord and assign the notes to different voices. It's like an advanced version of those Sesame Street segments where Muppets individually say the syllables of a word and then combine to say the entire word together. When voices begin to hocket (the word is related to 'hiccup'), the sound start to flicker and pop as if the chords and melodies were multiplying like soap bubbles."

An excellent example of hocketing can be heard in this video, shot on an iPhone by Questlove, the drummer for The Roots. On September 28, the Dirty Projectors appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, who uses The Roots as his house band. Before their on-air appearance, though, the Projectors gave a backstage acoustic performance for The Roots. Questlove posted the video to his Twitter where he wrote, "Man. Dirty Projectors came into our room and demonstrated their awesomeness. How cool is it for them to do this?" He then Tweeted it again with the message, "dirty projectors really became a fav of mine after today."

On November 22, three members of the Roots, Questlove included, joined the Dirty Projectors on stage at their show at the Bowery Ballroom for two songs ("Stillness" and "No Intention"). The entire concert can be downloaded here. The crowd apparently went wild when the Roots came out and the energy stayed in the air even after the guests left the stage. During a short encore break, another microphone was brought to the stage and David Byrne joined the Projectors for a final single song. He had previously appeared on stage with them at the Dark Was the Night charity concert on May 3 at Radio City Music Hall (that concert can be heard here) and at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee.

Things really came full circle, though, on November 25, when Amber and Haley of the Projectors returned to the Jimmy Fallon Show without the rest of the band to help The Roots fill out the backing band for rappers Mos Def and Talib Kweli. Questlove is the drummer with the big afro in the background.

So here we have a few members of an experimental/indie band practiced in a 13th Century singing technique independently helping a hip-hop band that employs traditional instruments like the tuba back two rappers, and somehow the whole thing works. It's this very kind of openness and experimentation that has contributed to making music so fruitful in 2009.