Here’s a scary tidbit: This was the session that was the closest to not happening of all the sessions in Daytrotter’s short, one-year history. Dirty Projectors lead singer David Longstreth And his band drove into Davenport the night before after a performance in Iowa City, opening for Grizzly Bear. They stayed at a hotel up by an old abandoned movie theater, but a morning fubard threw the session in jeopardy. The disaster was quelled and we were able to entertain their company for a few hours. What if this session hadn’t happened? We’d all be worse off, I assure you. As good fortune would have it, we do not have to worry about such a dour predicament. It happened and we’re thanking our lucky stars that it did, for obvious reasons. Immediately, you’ll pick up what we’re putting down when we say such things. The always pronounced individuality that Longstreth brings to his music is evident right off the bat as the versions of the three songs from his New Attitude EP are sparkling, teaming with a different kind of life than they’ve been previously heard on tape. They exhibit the same kind of red hot energy that they’re known for live. It felt like a privilege and an honor that we were able to capture it in its most natural habitat, while still getting with some studio shine. These were songs and a band that you have to sneak up on, as if they could spook easily and you’d never get another scent, never even spot another footprint. The final song performed was a tune that David had never even played in front of his bandmates before. It was the first time any of them had heard it and it’s a song that recalls the shapely and stark moments of an Antony and the Johnsons song – where the heart’s even closer to the skin’s surface. We were met with the friendly face of Angel, who was with Casey Dienel when she played for us last year. The band cleaned off their songs and headed off to the west, right into the teeth of an imposing snowstorm. – Sean Moeller
 
First song
Fucked for Life (Dirty Projectors) [3.04MB] [5101 downloads]


– original version appears on New Attitude
This is a blues riff in B.  The band just watches me for the changes and tries to keep up.  It is about a time that I was went swimming with my girlfriend in her father’s pool.  There is a light allusion to Botticelli’s Venus painting, but it is a joke because I misremembered the painting: I thought she was waving, but she’s actually using her hand to cover her breast.

Second song
Imagine It (Dirty Projectors) [5.22MB] [4672 downloads]


– original version appears on New Attitude
This is a song I made for the New Attitude album. The guitar pattern is based on traditional krar plucking style, with the finger pattern broken up across the two guitars.  The basic image of New Attitude, the album, is of two sheep counting each other to fall asleep, like the old cartoon of the insomniac, but like a mirror, not a cartoon, and not an insomniac.  In this song, the two guitars alternate in the same kind of way, counting each other: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 and so on.

Third song
New New Attitude (Dirty Projectors) [3.70MB] [4486 downloads]


– original version appears on New Attitude
This is a new arrangement of a song that goes back to when I lived in Providence, RI in 2005.  I still haven’t recorded it.

Fourth song
A Labor More Restful (Dirty Projectors) [3.65MB] [4341 downloads]


– unreleased
This song is from Slaves’ Graves & Ballads, an album I made in 2002.  I haven’t really been into guitar and voice stuff much recently, but I thought of this song the morning that we did the Daytrotter session, and just wanted to do it.