Dirty Projectors: CD Review
Issue #24
The Getty Address (Western Vinyl)
By Kristina Francisco
Published: June 1st, 2005 | 1:07pm
From the first moments of album-opener "I Sit on a Ridge at Dusk" to the last seconds of "Finches' Song at Oceanic Parking Lot," The Getty Address takes you through the wild, wild mind of crazy man Dave Longstreth, principal Dirty Projector and musical genius. Serving as an operatic ode to Eagles’ mastermind Don Henley, the album took Longstreth nearly two years to finish and the work of more than 25 collaborators, including a women's choir, a wind septet, and a cello octet.
Much like Longstreth's previous efforts, The Getty Address bucks traditional conceptions of beautiful music. At the forefront are Longstreth's surreal, often unintelligible, vocals — vocals that are still crying to the high heavens about finches and nature. Coupled with the glitch-filled instrumentation, African rhythms, classical influence, and gospel choir, the album pulls off the rare maneuver of standing at the edge of failure but rising to the heights of brilliance.
In the first few months of conceiving The Getty Address, Longstreth recorded the initial musical arrangements, hated them, digitally deconstructed them, then put them back together, to arrive at the 13 tracks here. Many instrumentally tie together, like "D. Henley's Dream" and "Time Birthed Spilled Blood," reinforcing the maniacal journey through Longstreth’s creative mind. Most accessible are the storybook "Gilt Gold Scabs," the driving "Not Having Found," and the handclap-laden "Tour Along the Potomac."
Though The Getty Address is undoubtedly challenging in its layers of complexity, it is spellbinding in its complete originality, proving that genius isn't meant to be understood by everyone.
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