Precious Reciprocity

(Photo source: Dirty Projectors' Myspace)

The Dirty Projectors' "Two Young Sheeps" (link to mp3), off of their 2006 New Attitude EP, has been one of my favorite songs for the past month or so. An eight minute live recording, the song's guitar, key and vocal parts rely heavily on call and response structure. Along with the lo-fi sound quality, this gives the track a total funky Lagos feel.
In the wake of Sasha Frere-Jones's New Yorker article, criticizing indie-rock (a term I'd prefer not to use) for what he sees as its overwhelming whiteness (and the spate of responses it provoked), Dirty Projectors' use of African structures raises a different sort of questions about the relationship between music and race/ethnicity. As shown on their two most recent LPs - The Getty Address (2005) and Rise Above (2007) - Dirty Projectors' mastermind Dave Longstreth has a unique ability to craft songs and album concepts that play with notions of authenticity and the creative process. Here, he takes the form of traditional African music and uses it to create something artificial but not cheap; appropriating without being exploitative, the sound vividly evokes the loose, collective feeling of a blissed-out 3rd world jam.

Check out their Daytrotter session for 4 more songs.