nifty snippet from the new issue of The Wire, #2

"Dirty Projectors are a vanguard case of a development both promising and problematic - the imposition of cursor-dragging collage on the structures of rock songwriting. The sudden transitions, disparate materials and what-the-heck conceptualism of their songs internalises...  the jostling data of the web page...  "

-- Dan Barrow on the DP's newie Swing Lo Magellan

DB concludes, sadly, that "the digital dreamwork of their juxtapositions has turned leaden... where once the proggily spiralling forms of their work suggested an infinite capacity for invention, it now seems like a dismal scramble for shortened-span attentions"  But wait there's worse: "they seem to belong to a moment that's past. Their work's profusion reflected the shadow economy of the web, and the virtual bubble of financialisation that was its partner"

A bad augury for the third album from the similarly located Vampire Weekend, then

But judge for yourself: the first single off Swing Lo:

compare with when-they-were-good