MOUNT WITTENBERG ORCA AVAILABLE NOW!

Mount Wittenbery Orca, the collaboration between Dirty Projectors & Bjork is available via www.mountwittenbergorca.com.With all proceeds going to National Geographic Society's Ocean Initiative.

MOUNT WITTENBERG ORCA DIRTY PROJECTORS + BJöRK June 30, 2010

Written by David Longstreth

Performed by Nathaniel Baldwin, Björk, Amber Coffman, Haley Dekle, Angel Deradoorian, David Longstreth and Brian McOmber

I               Ocean

II             On and Ever Onward

III            When the World Comes to an End

IV            Beautiful Mother

V             Sharing Orb

VI            No Embrace

VII           All We Are

Mount Wittenberg Orca is called Mount Wittenberg Orca because it is about whales, it was inspired by events on Mt. Wittenberg in California, and because it elaborates on David Longstreth's obsession with vocal harmony introduced on Dirty Projectors' 2009 album Bitte Orca.  This seven-song, twenty-one minute collection is the first original music the band has recorded since Bitte Orca, and it feels more like a small album than an EP.  It is also their most staggering collaboration yet — with the Icelandic artist Björk.

The music — originally written to be performed unamplified in a small Manhattan bookstore — was guided by a conversation between Longstreth and Björk about the small theaters in Italy where opera was born in the 1500s.  The recording was informed by the simple, direct feel of early rock & roll recordings from the '50s.  The band and Björk rehearsed for three days at the Rare Book Room in Brooklyn, and then recorded the songs as quickly and as live as possible, overdubbing only lead vocals and solos.  The result feels like part children's story, part choral music from some strange future.   

It's unlike anything else in the Projectors' body of work: Nat Baldwin's bass is massive and lumbering, like the silhouette of some undersea creature.  Drums and guitars, so crucial to the songs on Bitte Orca, are all but absent.  Instead, it's all about voices — and the voices are astonishing.  Longstreth, sharing lead vocal duties with Björk, exudes a limber confidence. The Projectors women Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian and Haley Dekle sound beautiful and virtuosic.  And Björk, seismic and elemental as always, sounds fresh in this new context, singing lead on half the songs.

This record is a triumph for Björk and for Dirty Projectors.  It merges the energy and rawness of the band's live shows with the intricate arrangement and delicate beauty of Bitte Orca, and seems to do it effortlessly.  Björk abides as a kind of artistic patron saint, sharing the spotlight rather than dominating it.  Her mix of sophistication and emotion, of composition and instantaneity, has become the blueprint for a generation of creative musicians — and with Mount Wittenberg Orca, Dirty Projectors prove themselves at the forefront of that generation.

In keeping with the spirit of the release, all proceeds from Mount Wittenberg Orca will be donated to the National Geographic Society's Ocean Initiative. More information can be found at www.mountwittenbergorca.com

Listen to track VII, 'All We Are', here: http://soundcloud.com/dominorecordco/dirty-projectors-bjork-all-we-are

For more information contact Domino on 020 8875 1390 or e-mail firstname@dominorecordco.com