Review Summary: Colorful, raw, and filled with plenty of unique harmonies: Mount Wittenberg Orca is simply gorgeous.
Most fans of Dirty Projectors would agree that their best era was 2006-2013, which was the only era to have Amber Coffman on vocals and guitar. Coffman’s additions took David Longstreth’s largely forgettable indie band and made it something special. While her vocals would typically be relegated to the background, they’d often still outshine Longstreth’s leads with their unique, lyricless vocalizations. Longstreth doesn’t have a bad voice, but at the same time, it’s painfully average as far as indie music is concerned. It’s no surprise that the one single Coffman helped write, “Stillness Is the Move,” which features her on lead vocals, is easily the band’s biggest hit.
Despite all of the acclaim the three Coffman-era Dirty Projectors albums have gotten, their 2010 EP collab with Bjork, Mount Wittenberg Orca, is largely forgotten. And why would that be? Indie fans love Bjork, and 2009 was the height of Dirty Projectors popularity. So shouldn’t a 2010 EP with both of them be eaten up like candy? Is it because Bjork’s previous 2007 album Volta was poorly received by most of her fans?
Whatever the reason, Mount Wittenberg Orca lives up to most of the hype of 2009 predecessor Bitte Orca, but with a rawer, more nature-oriented atmosphere. Most of the guitar on the album is acoustic, and the atmospheric double bass occasionally shows up to hum. Unfortunately, the bass guitar and drums are stripped down to their basics leaving little to enjoy from them. This is compensated by Coffman, and her co-vocalists Angel Deradoorian and Haley Deckle, who sound like ecstatic chirping birds whenever they provide backup vocals. The trio ends up stealing the show for the duration of the EP and is at their most impressive at the 0:33-0:38 mark of “Beautiful Mother.” Longstreth's vocals are as bland as expected, but he only ends up leading two and a half of the songs. On these songs, the trio still provides their lovely harmonies as backup.
The entire EP feels like a brisk spring day outside and according to Longstreth, is meant to capture Coffman’s wonder when she saw whales at Mount Wittenberg in California. Although no whales are mentioned in the lyrics, recurring lyrical themes of water appear frequently. Not only is the one instrumental on the album titled “Ocean,” but every other song, except for “When the World Comes to an End,” directly mentions water in some capacity. Bjork-led highlight “On and Ever Onward” makes it easy to picture her as a whale as she sings about how the river is her home and that the ocean is her “Tempurpedic” mattress.
Clocking in at under twenty-two minutes, sounding raw, having an aquatic theme, and featuring Bjork, makes this release unique, inviting, and absolutely gorgeous. Maybe having interesting bass and drums would make Mount Wittenberg Orca too cluttered, so simplifying them to help the harmonies, leads, and guitar, stand out was the ideal choice. Fans of Bitte Orca and Swing Lo Magellan who haven’t checked this out yet: what are you waiting for?
Album highlights: “On and Ever Onward”, “Beautiful Mother,” “No Embrace”
