Dirty Projectors, David Longstreth & s t a r g a z e - Song Of The Earth 

At first glance, the decision to credit this release to both David Longstreth and Dirty Projectors seems redundant, being that he is the only permanent member of that band, which itself started out as a vehicle for his own songwriting. Had there been no mention of Dirty Projectors, though, you wouldn’t have made it ten minutes into ‘Song of the Earth’ without heading to Google to check if this was actually the same David Longstreth. This wild, sprawling 24-track suite is way out of his traditional wheelhouse, an epic song cycle in collaboration with orchestral collective s t a r g a z e that suggests an all-or-nothing approach to stepping outside of his comfort zone; here, he has taken a left turn at 100 miles per hour.
Over the course of more than sixty minutes, we get jazzy orchestral improvisations (‘At Home’), baroque pop (‘Opposable Thumb’), atmospheric laments (‘More Mania’, ‘Spiderweb at Water’s Edge’), off-kilter, groove-driven anthems (‘Uninhabitable Earth, Part One’) and occasional moments of shimmering beauty that seem to stand alone, particularly the Mount Eerie collaboration ‘Twin Aspens’. Emboldened by the sweep of the strings and the portent of the brass that s t a r g a z e provide, Longstreth is similarly ambitious when it comes to thematic content, touching upon everything from climate crisis to Gaia consciousness. It is a heady and often confounding listen and, for many, will be too drastic a departure from his normal territory, or too diffuse and hectic a set of ideas. What ‘Song of the Earth’ can’t be faulted for, though, is a lack of ambition.