Endlessly talented and unaffected by the rubber stamp placed on them by the ILM elite, Dirty Projectors played precocious, innocent and brilliant. Leadman Dave Longstreth wields his guitar upside down and left-handed, a furious Jimi Hendrix play shackled only by boat shoes and effete charm. Plunging into “Temecula Sunrise,” off 2009's Bitte Orca, the DP bespoke a violent beauty in their constant changes in time signature and the dueling voices of Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian. Fitting name, my dear: when the pair chime in with their ferocious harmonies, it's like the angels are bowling.

There's a video floating around featuring the girls alternating sixteenth notes at the behest of ?uestlove (great quote: “Uh, we live in Brooklyn, actually”) and they put on a similar clinic tonight, wowing the crowd with vocal synergy over re-assigned, meticulously assembled reggae and R&B beats, fuelled literally by grueling rehearsals and figuratively by a long-lost lineage. That is to say: by finishing sentences for each other and reciting complex musical phrases to a T, Dirty Projectors lent us insight into what it must be like to be part of identical twindom–or at least, to experience a lifelong alliance in the pursuit of prog-rhythm radiance.–MIke Orme

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