Consequently we perhaps ought to relax a touch and rejoice somewhat that a record as expressive and provocative as Swing Lo Magellan may materialise at all; hurled out into the unremitting torrent of rubbish we've now come to accept as the modern-day modus operandi as far as our aural ingestion may be concerned. View this one then as, say, a hollowed out Doritos packet chucked out into the Wallabout Bay. Does it therefore shrink in on itself in despairing hope of sinkage? Heck nope; it rides the redundancy of most music that's purportedly relevant to then tumble vividly across your imagination like luminous tumbleweed with a polyrhythmic crinkle.
Circa a quarter of a million already pushed play on the soothsome coos and quintessentially off-kilter skitter of Gun Has No Trigger so you're doubtless already all brushed up on that one. Yet soak in Swing Lo Magellan 'til incontrovertibly awash with its fresh vibrancy and you'll swiftly become aware of this being perhaps its most ordinary instance: for this is arguably Longstreth's magnum opus; his Harvest as he and they purvey an admirable although ever organic progression toward unashamed listenability. Envisage Bitte Orca brushed up with the alluring rosiness of a ruddy Castilleja and the record becomes a little easier to visualise and to resultantly be allowed to thrive in the mind. For comforting and tranquil and inexpressibly tremendous is Swing Lo Magellan, with highlights glaring through omnipresently.
From lovably twitchy opener Offspring Are Blank through its torpid Elvis-slash-Scott Walker denouement, the sixth is an enchanting triumph: Maybe That Was It recalls the Dirty Three at their most overpoweringly passionate (albeit were that amplified further by Longstreth's typically distressed vocals), whilst the segueing Impregnable Question is coated in sprinkles of that comparably impassioned dusty, scuff-heeled soul what The Isley Brothers once trod into black wax. More lyrically mopey than Motown, See What She Seeing has Longstreth lamenting: "Mornings I wake up hungover/ Lower than mornings before" atop a jaunty frolic of a warped pop song and exposes this immeasurably dynamic, song-spewing being as fellow human after all whilst those signature elastic strands of Strat limber up and twinkle about Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian's vocal acrobatics; their harmonious pirouettes on the river-glint sheen of Just From Chevron.
However despite outvoicing the rimy Icelandic sovereign of asociality, Björk, on 2010's Mount Wittenberg Orca for the most part they play rather peripheral roles – even if Coffman's The Socialites proves a fluffy joy. Thus employed to sparse extent, these supernatural compositions – and with them Longstreth – are allowed to fully flourish. And although the seemingly Blowin' in the Wind-inspired Unto Caesar tediously explicates the Brooklynites' growing accessibility gone awry, and the thought of their ringleader squiggling them svelte hips in attempted eroticism isn't precisely enticing then his vocals are just so on the Smokey Robinson-inspired Dance For You. "I boogied down Gargoyle Street/ Searching in every face for something I could believe" he lulls, his vocals flecked with an insubstantial ethereality that seems a touch discordant with such human jollity lyrical. Nonetheless he now sounds as though in the prime of his life both personally and artistically, and a fleeting glimpse in any mirror would reflect something – or rather someone – worth unreservedly placing all confidence in. They can scrub up filthily immaculately when the mood takes them, these Dirty Projectors...
