Song Of The Earth

Dirty Projectors, David Longstreth & s t a r g a ze announce their album ‘Song Of The Earth’, with the first single ‘Uninhabitable Earth, Paragraph One’.

‘Song Of The Earth’ is due April 4th 2025 via Transgressive for the world ex-US ( which goes through Nonesuch).

Song of the Earth is performed by Longstreth with members of his band Dirty Projectors — Felicia Douglass, Maia Friedman, Olga Bell — and the Berlin-based chamber orchestra s t a r g a z e, the album also features Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie), Steve Lacy, Patrick Shiroishi, Anastasia Coope, Tim Bernardes, Ayoni, Portraits of Tracy, and the author David Wallace-Wells.

Longstreth wrote the first draft in six manic weeks for a commission arranged by s t a r g a z e. He felt disoriented and also galvanized by the moment:  the pandemic chaos, the ‘radical psychedelia’ of new fatherhood, the novelty of writing for large ensemble. Then he spent three years revising, rewriting, rearranging, and recording in studios and homes in the Netherlands, Los Angeles, and New York City.

Song of the Earth marks Longstreth’s biggest-yet foray into the field of concert music. It received its US premiere in a March 2024 sold-out performance at Disney Hall in Los Angeles with the LA Philharmonic. Work-in-progress performances also took place between 2022 and 2024 at the Barbican in London, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, and Muziekgebouw Amsterdam.

Just as Dirty Projectors’ Rise Above sounds nothing like Damaged — the Black Flag album upon which is based — Song of the Earth bears little resemblance to its namesake, Gustav Mahler’s 1908 song-poem Das Lied Von Der Erde. But Longstreth notes that “it is saturated with the Mahler work’s themes, feelings and spirit of dissolved contradiction.” 

Side A

1 Summer Light
2 Gimme Bread
3 At Home
4 Circled in Purple
5 Our Green Garden
6 Walk the Edge

Side B

1 Opposable Thumb
2 More Mania
3 Spiderweb at Water's Edge
4 Mallet Hocket
5 So Blue the Lake
6 Dancing on our Eyelids
7 Same River Twice
8 Armfuls of Flowers

Side C

1 Twin Aspens
2 Uninhabitable Earth, Paragraph One
3 Kyrie / About My Day
4 Shifting Shalestones
5 Appetite

Side D

1 Bank On
2 Paper Birches, Whole Scroll
3 Raven Ascends
4 Blue of Dreaming
5 Raised Brow

CD Tracklist

1 Summer Light
2 Gimme Bread
3 At Home
4 Circled in Purple
5 Our Green Garden
6 Walk the Edge
7 Opposable Thumb
8 More Mania
9 Spiderweb at Water's Edge
10 Mallet Hocket
11 So Blue the Lake
12 Dancing on our Eyelids
13 Same River Twice
14 Armfuls of Flowers
15 Twin Aspens
16 Uninhabitable Earth, Paragraph One
17 Kyrie / About My Day
18 Shifting Shalestones
19 Appetite
20 Bank On
21 Paper Birches, Whole Scroll
22 Raven Ascends
23 Blue of Dreaming
24 Raised Brow