#nonesuch

The title of Mahler’s late work Das Lied von die Erde (“The Song of the Earth”) is a clear nod to late romanticism. Longstreth’s songs are more compact than most Mahler. “Bank On,” the longest on the album, a mini-epic six minutes, with many others clocking in around the two and three minutes mark. There are also minute-long miniatures, such as “Same River Twice” and “Appetite,”  that have time to create an ambience before quickly departing. Romanticism presents as a surface element among a number of disparate musical layers.

Dirty Projectors has long reveled in the jubilantly po-mo, abetted by recording technology to mix mercurial shifts of manner. On previous outings, the quality of Longstreth’s songwriting has sometimes been subsumed by the jump cut quality of its presentation. He doesn’t dispose of this practice on Song of the Earth, but the plethora of classical instruments at his disposal are often deployed in arrangements with a deliberate sense of solidity. “Gimme Earth” combines orchestra, rock instruments, and puckish singing. A folksy verse is contrasted by a prog chorus, interludes filled with upward string arpeggiated flourishes, and a portentous brass fanfare as its climax. The overlapped vocals on “More Mania,” which might have engendered hazier production on a Dirty Projectors release, here are given minimal seasoning, the better to blend with stargaze.

Although Song of the Earth is called a “song cycle,” is this entirely accurate? The term song cycle often implies consolidation, one composer’s group of settings by a single poet. Song of the Earth is instead a work of assemblage, juxtaposition and accrual. If adopting the designation helps Longstreth to write such compelling music, long live the “song cycle.”