Recap: Dirty Projectors and Givers at The Black Cat

It’s rare to be genuinely blown away by an opening band, especially one that hasn’t already been snatched up and hyped online. But those lucky enough to catch the opener of last night’s Dirty Projectors show at The Black Cat were treated to a wonderful performance by Lafayette, La., quintet Givers. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more versatile group of instrumentalists sharing such a small stage: frontman Taylor Guarisco wails on the guitar; co-lead vocalist Tif Lamson works through percussion, a glockenspiel, guitars, and an electric ukulele; drummer Kirby Campbell is one of the more inventive beatsmiths seen in recent memory; bassist Josh LeBlanc switches back and forth to belt out soaring trumpet lines; and keyboardist Will Henderson controls atmospheric noise rock like a true master—comparable to Wilco’s Mikael Jorgensen.

In addition to her jack-of all-trades approach to music, Lamson has a certain Karen O quality to her voice: at times precious, at others smoky and worn, and occasionally heart-wrenchingly screamy. Givers noticeably owes a debt of gratitude to the West African-inspired jams of Paul Simon’s Graceland (then again, who doesn’t these days?), but the band comes off more as a contemporary of high-energy Welsh glock-rockers Los Campesinos! than a Vampire Weekend derivative. To add to its charm, Givers’ six-city stint with Dirty Projectors is its first time on tour (the band was actually discovered while opening for a DP show in Baton Rouge a few weeks ago), rolling up to the nation’s capital with only musical equipment and a five-track EP in tow.

A Dirty Projectors set is not so much a rock show as a study in the instrumentation of the human voice, with four talented vocalists (frontman David Longstreth, keyboardist Angel Deradoorian, guitarist Amber Coffman and backup vocalist Haley Dekle) stretching their pipes in complex, layered harmonies. The bulk of DP’s set came off 2009’s critically acclaimed Bitte Orca, by far the band’s best and most accessible album to date. After opening with a dizzying loop of Coffman, Deradoorian and Dekle’s angelic sopranos—presumably pulled off with some sort of behind-the-scenes vocoder—Longstreth’s strained, loping falsettos took center stage with “Remade Horizon,” “No Intention,” and “Temecula Sunrise.” On his own, Longstreth’s unwillingness to stick to a single note likely would have come off as an over-the-top David Byrne caricature, but when grounded by swirling, meticulously composed art-rock textures and the accompanying trio’s simple yet piercing harmonies, the frontman’s quirks fit.

It’s difficult to lump the eccentric string of songs that followed into a single genre. “Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie,” off 2007’s Rise Above, was a finger-picked psych-folk cover of a relentless 1981 Black Flag punk track. “Two Doves” was a heartfelt acoustic duet between Deradoorian and Longstreth, similar in both form and lyrics to Nico’s rendition of Jackson Browne’s “These Days.” (It even borrows the line “Don’t confront me with my failures.") “The Bride” spotlighted Longstreth’s vocals and mastery of mid-hook time changes, while “Police Story” (another Black Flag cover off Rise Above) was a near a capella ode to unnecessarily oppressive urban law enforcement.

And then there was pop. Well, relative pop at least. “Cannibal Resource,” the listener-friendly opener off of Bitte Orca, was greeted with the night’s first audible uproar from the crowd, followed by a sing-along to the refrain’s addictive background vocals. Later, the funky, guitar-drizzled opening groove to “Stillness Is The Move” incited a swaying dance party. The song is a perplexing (and outstanding) addition to DP’s catalogue, reminiscent of a track off The Blow's recent record: heavy R&B influences, an uncharacteristically straight-forward arrangement, and a beautiful chorus anchored by Coffman’s Mariah Carey-esque vocal trills. Longstreth and the crew closed their set with Bitte’s “Useful Chamber,” building up to a blazing chant-like chorus of “Bitte orca, orca bitte” (apparently a completely meaningless concatenation of the German word for “please” and a carnivorous whale).

In the encore, the true highlights of the night came out. After retrieving the crowd’s attention with “Fluorescent Half Dome,” Longstreth transitioned to his most recent material: the unreleased “When The World Comes To An End,” a largely experimental piece with a fascinating melody of cuckoo-esque vocal spurts, and “Knotty Pine," the piano-heavy collaboration with David Byrne off Dark Was The Night.

http://www.avclub.com/dc/articles/dirty-projectors-and-givers-at-the-black-cat,34478/