Dirty Projectors & Deerhunter at Variety Playhouse, September 4, 2019

Let's get the bitching and the complaining out of the way first so that we can get it off our chest and move on to discuss all of the many good things about last night.

The tickets, the Variety Playhouse web site, and social media all clearly said "doors at 7:00, show at 8:00."  We arrived at the Playhouse about 7:10 and there was still a line outside, albeit a short one, so we got in queue and waited for the doors to open.  We were about a dozen folks back from the front of the line, standing in front of the falafel joint next door to the Playhouse.  By 7:30, the doors still hadn't opened so we continued to wait, and the doors still weren't yet open by 8:00.  The sun set and light shifted from the bright sunlight of the day to the neon illumination of Little Five Points at night, and we were still waiting outside.

However, while standing in line outside the venue, we were able to clearly hear Dirty Projectors' sound check inside (the front doors were open, even though we still weren't allowed to enter), and it didn't sound anything like a "sound check" at all - they were playing several songs completely through as if giving an actual show, not the usual "testing, 1-2, 1-2" of a typical soundcheck.

It occurred to us that this might be some sort of avant-garde experimental concept performance - the band will play their complete set to an empty theater, and then let the audience in later to experience silence for an equivalent amount of time. But no, at 8:20, the doors finally opened and they allowed us to come inside.  The show finally started at 9:00, not 8:00 as advertised.

No explanation was giving, but Dave Longstreth of Dirty Projectors mentioned that about half of the band's equipment still hadn't yet arrived and that they'd be performing this set "java-cafe style," meaning Longstreth solo on guitar, with no pedal board or effects, and just his backing vocalists (drum and bass were added late in the set).  Later, Brandon Cox of Deerhunter apologized for the late start and said that they had just got back earlier that day from London, implying some possible jet-lag issues for the starting time, but other than that, no explanation was given.

Some in the audience speculated that the songs we heard Dirty Projectors play earlier were some sort of special private performance for industry types or other VIPs, while others said that the complete songs were due to Longstreth, ever the perfectionist, making sure that the songs would work in their stripped down, java-cafe style.  Whatever the reasons, once the music finally started around nine-ish, all was forgiven (the redemptive powers of live music) and the delay was quickly forgotten.

Dirty Projectors performed first.  Dirty Projectors are an indie-rock band formed in Brooklyn back in 2002 and currently consisting of core member David Longstreth on vocals and guitar and longtime bass guitarist Nat Baldwin and drummer Mike Daniel Johnson, with the vocal trio of Maia Friedman, Felicia Douglass and Kristin Slipp.  The current vocal trio replaces the previous, "classic" trio of Haley Dekle, the extravagantly talented Angel Deradoorian, and America's sweetheart, Amber Coffman.

An astonishing number of musicians have passed through the band over the years, if not as bona fide members, then at least as collaborators, most noticeably Bjork, who upon hearing the band just had to get involved on their Mount Wittenberg Orca album. Other past members/collaborators have included David Byrne (Talking Heads), Rostam Batmanglij and Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend), Jona Bechtolt (YACHT), and Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak and Flock of Dimes).  What's remarkable, and was very apparent last night, is how remarkably cohesive and consistent the idiosyncratic Dirty Projectors set list sounds. Nobody else sounds quite like them, what with their West African rhythms and unusual harmonies, and their songs are always immediately identifiable as Dirty Projectors compositions.

Songs from the latest album, Lamp Lit Prose, fit in well with songs from the earlier albums, despite over a decade between recordings and a completely different vocal ensemble supporting Longstreth, whose voice sounded in fine shape last night.

Case in point:  they closed out their set last night with Beautiful Mother from the Bjork collaboration Mount Wittenberg Orca, and the sound of the new vocal trio, as captured here: 

is remarkably similar to that of the original trio:

Discussing the band's use of harmony in a post earlier this year, we noted that the band employs hocketing, a technique that stretches back to the thirteenth century. To hocket, you split up a melody or a 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," explained Sasha Frere Jones in The New Yorker once.  The videos above, or any recording played through speakers for that matter, can't quite capture the full effect of hearing hocketing and the ensuing harmony performed live.  The reason that the audience reacts so enthusiastically during the song is that the shimmering effect of  the sound waves and harmonic interference patterns of hocketing is almost like a tangible sheet of sound being unfurled over your head.  It's astonishing and you immediately want to hear it again, and fortunately the band is generous enough that they do it three times during the song. 

Dirty Projectors played a 60-minute set, impressive for an opener, but this was more of a dual-headliner show than a traditional headliner-and-opening-act affair.  They played Cannibal Resource and Temecula Sunrise from their Bitte Orca LP, and several songs from Swing Lo Magellan, including the title track, Dance For You, Impregnable Question, and the impressive Gun Has No Trigger, as well as songs from the new Lamp Lit Prose LP and we think even a few new numbers that we didn't recognize.  It was a great set, and made us all the more remorseful that as far as we know they hadn't played Atlanta since 2011.

So, what else?  Oh yeah, there was another co-headliner last night, Atlanta's Deerhunter.  They started at around 10:30 and played until well past midnight.

If there was any question that Deerhunter had turned to a quieter, less aggressive sound after 2014's discordant Monomania with this year's Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared and it's opening track, the harpsichord-laden Death in Midsummer, that thought was quickly dispelled by the ambient-noise looped screams of the set's opening followed by a loud, raucous version of 2005's Cryptograms.  The entire set was aggressively loud and occasionally abrasive, with each song dissolving into a noise collage of musique concrete until the next song emerged from the ruckus.  

Death in Midsummer was the second song of their set, and they hit it hard and loud in a way only suggested by the album version.

They played several songs from the new album, including our favorite What Happens To People, followed by a number of songs from their landmark 2010 album, Halcyon Digest.  The set went long - several songs featured extended sequences of repeated riffs, and their encore, which didn't begin until after 12:00 a.m., was a marathon, bruising version of He Would Have Laughed from Halycon Digest.

Deerhunter are from Atlanta, and both frontman Brandon Cox and guitarist Lockett Pundt had family, including their moms, in the audience.  Cox, who kept the banter to a minimum for the first three quarters of the show, finally gave his mother a touching and heartfelt tribute from the stage ("I enjoy being my mother's son") and then, with the volume turned up to the proverbial 11, pummeled her and the audience with closer Nocturne from the new LP.

How loud was it?  We were at our usual spot at Variety Playhouse - first riser on the right, a good 50 feet back from the stage - and we could physically feel the sound waves against our skin and clothes coming from the speakers.  The sheer volume made the air seem electric, as if it were about to spontaneously burst into nuclear fission at any second, and Cox and company expertly rode the waves of electric air into ever-higher levels of psychedelic delirium.

Overall, it was an unforgettable experience, although, to be honest, given its late start and length, it was occasionally an experience that at times was more to be endured than enjoyed.  But after it was all over and what was left of the audience staggered out of Variety Playhouse into the still-warm air of a late-summer Georgia night, we all had ecstatic smiles on our star-battered faces. 

Looking back, it was an unusual pairing of bands - Dirty Projectors' artsy, multi-culti music doesn't immediately bring to mind the aggressive psych-rock of Deerhunter.  But it does make sense that both bands would attract the same audience, even if for very different reasons, and overall it was a great show not to be missed. It was worth staying out late for on a weeknight, and it was worth the ringing in our ears on the drive home.  

Between waiting for the doors to open, the set to start, and the two long sets themselves, we had been on our feet for some 5 1/2 hours.  We had been mentally challenged by Projectors' cerebral approach to music and physically challenged by Deerhunter's assault on our senses. We were spent, drained - and had gotten more than our money's worth from the show.