13.07.18

A far cry from the morose, post-breakup ditties of last year’s self-titled record, Dirty Projectors’ latest is a return to the tectonic shifts of their late 00s breakthrough. Switching tempo and texture on the fly, and framed by hypnotic, hocketed vocals, it’s a twisted listen, with the likes of lead single Break-Thru and the Empress Of-featuring Zombie Conqueror tying themselves in knots from the off, while always retaining their pop nous.

Throwing open the studio doors for collaboration after collaboration, Lamp Lit Prose’s greatest strength is in its vocal eclecticism. When it all threatens to sag under the weight of all the musical witchcraft and wizardry, another guest is wheeled out to freshen things up. Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes and Rostam of ex-Vampire Weekend fame appear on the penultimate You’re the One, stripping back the bonkers for the record’s most straightforward, folky ballad, before (I Wanna) Feel It All surges in with the same blissed-out saxophony that flooded Bon Iver’s 22, A Million.

As the record drifts to a close, it all disintegrates into the kind of glitched-out, deconstructionist arrangements that Oneohtrix Point Never might make had he grown up in an enchanted forest, rather than inside a robot. It’s an abrupt, oblique end that once again positions David Longstreth as a left-field musical auteur like no other, making the avant-garde accessible.

Tom Connick