The Scrabbled: Making Fun of Each Other since '99

I’ve been wanting to write about this album since it came out but I’ve had a difficult time not just in trying to describe the music, but to figure out just what it is I’m hearing. It’s really something else. Hauntingly sparse interludes broken by violent passages of drum n’ bass noise, ambient drones and chanting giving way to fits of beautiful harmony; if anything it’s an exercise in musical dichotomies. And it works. It really works.

So I’m at a wedding last weekend and talking to a friend and she’s talking about this once-in-a-lifetime show she saw after The Dirty Projectors and Bjork expressed some sorta mutual admiration. So Longstreth wrote seven songs specifically as a collaboration between her and them and they played said songs in a library charity show thing in new york and that was that. My friend, Missy, mentioned that they’d promised a release, but it had been months and months and no news.

Three days later, they announce they’re releasing a CD. Which I got. And it’s pretty amazing. Mostly vocal, with very sparse instrumentation. Some almost sound like exercises in vocal composition, but I sorta dig it for that. Definitely worth checking out. You know where to look.

AGH!! ERF!@! SNU!!

!$!!!!!!

Paris is a jerk for not telling me about this the second he found out about it. I’m listening for the first time and I’m getting goosebumps. This is better than even I could have hoped in all my fanboyishness.

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