Posted on: April 20, 2009 Posted by: anfnewsacct Comments: 0

On May 8th, Dirty Projectors and Björk will be collaborating for a one-night only benefit show at the Housing Works Bookstore in Manhattan. The event was curated by Stereogum senior writer Brandon Stosuy and will feature an original piece composed by Dirty Projectors’ David Longstreth. The material will pair Björk and Longstreth with the Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian, and Haley Dekle. There will be two openers, Kurt Weisman chosen by Longstreth and Ólöf Arnalds chosen by Björk. All proceeds will go to Housing Works, a non-profit established to provide services for homeless men, women, and children living with HIV and AIDS. For ticket information, please visit the Housing Works website.

A survey of Dirty Projectors’ history reveals the kind of senseless, anarchic variety that often accompanies those ahead-of-the-curve innovators who can’t quite hold their shit together. The discography ranges from Prince-style auteur studio production (The Glad Fact) to orchestrated song-cycle (Slaves’ Graves and Ballads), from basic voice-and-acoustic-guitar plainsong to outre global rock music (Rise Above). Bold, surrealist gambits — like a Black Flag album rewritten from memory, or an opera about Don Henley as a composite Hernán Cortés and Steven Dedalus — are layered over a musical fabric that is itself new to the point of strangeness. What unites these wildly divergent approaches is Longstreth’s voice — a searching, Plantesque instrument — and a kind of John Coltrane spirituality: an equation of honesty with innovation, and an insistence on the redemptive, ecstatic delight of challenge. Bitte Orca, the band’s forthcoming new album, is out June 9 on Domino Records.

Dirty Projectors will also be touring this spring, opening for TV on the Radio. All shows listed below.

DIRTY PROJECTORS TOUR DATES

FRI 5/22 – Oakland, CA – Fox Oakland Theater

SAT 5/23 – Portland – Roseland Theater

MON 5/25 – Vancouver – Malkin Bowl

WED 5/27 – Edmonton – Edmonton Events Centre

THUR 5/28 – Calgary – Macewan Hall

FRI 5/29 – Saskatoon – Louis’ Pub

SAT 5/30 – Winnipeg – Burton Cummings Theatre

TUE 6/2 – Toronto – Sound Academy

WED 6/3 – Montrea – Metropolis

THUR 6/4 – Boston – HOB

FRI 6/5 – New York – Summerstage

SAT 6/6 – Baltimore – Metro Gallery – w/ A Place To Bury Strangers

MON 6/8 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club

TUE 6/9 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club

WED 6/10 – Richmond, VA – The National

THUR 6/11 – Charlotte, NC – Amos’ Southend

*All shows with TV on the Radio except June 6th

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