Lamp Lit Prose
| Dirty Projectors
Lamp Lit Prose
Lamp Lit Prose is the eighth studio album by American experimental rock group Dirty Projectors, and was released on Domino Records on July 13, 2018. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
Show All-
Pitchfork
Dave Longstreth is on a madcap quest for personal and political salvation on his latest album, reviving a more hopeful, chipper kind of songwriting of his past.
-
SPIN
There’s no doubt it’s all sincere, but Dirty Projectors was sincere as well; it’s just that doing “effortless” makes Longstreth sound like he’s trying way harder.
-
NME
Love triumphs on the band's most intriguing and joyous album since 2009's breakthrough 'Bitte Orca.'
-
NME
It’s a marvellous return to form for an act that possesses such unbridled creative energy. We’re glad they’ve been put to joyous use this time round.
-
Consequence of Sound
David Longstreth side-steps the self-indulgence and delivers quirk, wit, and warmth.
-
Rolling Stone
David Longstreeth and a crew of guest stars create deeply felt abstractions steeped in classic influences.
-
PopMatters
Dave Longstreth returns with the poppiest album yet from his project Dirty Projectors. Lamp Lit Prose offers big hooks as well as plenty of nervy rhythms and typical sonic left turns, resulting in a soundscape that's both exhilarating and exhausting.
-
The Guardian
This polar opposite of Dave Longstreth’s previous break-up howl, this album is impossible to resist.
-
Vulture
Lamp Lit Prose is a feel-good mutant soul album, a good soundtrack for humid nights spent waiting on texts from a summer fling, if that’s your thing.
-
Music OMH
The last album was such a darkly compelling set that it’d be wrong to frame Lamp Lit Prose as a ‘return to form’, but it’s perhaps a return to the light, to uneasy listening of a different sort.
-
Drowned in Sound
Ultimately, Lamp Lit Prose is a far more enjoyable listen than last year's self-titled in terms of content and feel alone.
-
The Line of Best Fit
David Longstreth can make excellent records – he’s already made three or four. But this isn’t one of them.
-
Independent
A unique indie record.
-
Tiny Mix Tapes
As its bookish title suggests, the album can be quaint, yet Prose is not an overthought practice in understatement. It’s a work of populist experimentation, a piece of music that flails outward as much as it meditates inward.
-
The New York Times
It’s not a withdrawal into romantic escapism. It’s a deliberate choice to look forward and seize what hope there is.
-
Paste Magazine
Lamp Lit Prose is rarely dull, turning corners and switching gears when you least expect it—even within the same song. Channeling earlier releases, longtime fans will be pleased, while newbies will eat up the poppier offerings and Longstreth’s tastier melodies.
-
The Advocate
"Lamp Lit Prose" is what it sounds like when musicians try too hard. There is no groove, grace, flow or self-awareness. It's the sound of a bunch of music school graduates showing off what they've heard. If that's your type of party, fine. I'll be in the back, bored out of my mind, looking for something less fake.
-
NPR Music
At times the album feels like a collision of high-concept computer-production ideas. Yet for all the details, it's also a blast of energy — a magic pop elixir designed to help you forget whatever troubles you might be carrying around.
-
Irish Times
Overall, Dirty Projectors come across an overrated early noughties outfit well past their sell-by date.
-
Loud And Quiet
It’s still music with brains, angles and layers Longstreth dares us to try and unravel, and while it shows he’s not totally over everything that’s happened, there’s enough to suggest that he’s at least in a better place. And when it comes to Dirty Projectors, you get the sense that’s all that’s ever really mattered
-
Uproxx
It’s their singularity that ensures them attention as they continue their career as a mid-tier band. And though it might not be what Longstreth envisioned at the band’s height, there are a lot worse fates in the world than being a true original.
-
Sputnik Music
Lamp Lit Prose is an exercise in exactly that: letting loose, writing from the heart, and rediscovering the things in life that make you happy. So lower the windows, crank that volume, and sing along at the top of your lungs.
-
Daily Journal
Lead vocalist David Longstreth somehow pushes all of the different sounds to the background, letting his voice take the forefront, which makes for easier listening.
-
The Young Folks
Lamp Lit Prose is not quite as glowing as its title suggests. Although it features lovely collaborations, intriguing instrumentation, and a great deal of good vibes, it’s far from the band’s most stellar work. Dirty Projectors have released some innovative tunes, but these don’t do the best job of showing off their potential.
-
LONDON IN STEREO
A true fusion of love and collectivity was the band’s real draw. Now, it’s quite apparent that Dirty Projectors is not much more than a single avatar pretending to be otherwise.
-
WRBB Radio
Despite the frustrating drop-off halfway through Lamp Lit Prose, it’s still a great collection of tracks. Longstreth continues to show his artistic ability both through himself and through his tastefully curated feature list. After the emotional black abyss that was the previous record, it’s incredibly satisfying and fun to experience Longstreth and Dirty Projectors blooming once again. Give it a listen, but maybe put the record on shuffle the second time around to fully enjoy the songs further down the track list.
-
Crack Magazine
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
-
Earbuddy
Dirty Projectors' latest album is an upbeat funky affair with lots of guests.
-
Albumism
Lamp Lit Prose is comforting for fans looking to remind themselves of why they love Dirty Projectors: the band is a mold of music that can and will take any shape possible.
-
Young Post
The eighth release from American art-rock group Dirty Projectors, Lamp Lit Prose, mixes incredible guitar interplay, with unpredictable and erratic songwriting. But it works.
-
WPTS Radio
However, as it is their second release in as many years, it is nice to see consistent output from the band, who will hopefully return to their day job of realizing their full potential in the near future.
-
Phawker
Intelligent pop music, if you will.
-
Uncut
Lamp Lit Prose is another outstanding chapter in what is shaping up to be one of the great 21st century musical odysseys.
-
Sungenre
Overall, while Lamp Lit Prose provides an enjoyable listen, many longtime fans will likely be disappointed by the continued attempted move into mainstream commercial appeal, with a polished production style serving as a departure from their much stronger earlier releases.
-
Vinyl Me, Please
Every week, we tell you about an album we think you need to spend time with. This week’s album is Lamp Lit Prose, the new album from Dirty Projectors.
-
The Skinny
David Longstreth's Dirty Projectors return with a terrifically upbeat album full of hopeful lyrics and bold, brassy arrangements.
-
Newsday
With “Lamp Lit Prose,” Longstreth and Dirty Projectors have created a multilayered, fascinating alternate universe to today’s pop world that makes for a highly entertaining visit.
-
Financial Times
Songs employ Afrobeat-style horns and trumpet blasts, the best cleaving most closely to the make-happy remit.
-
Clash Music
A stark yet cheerful achievement in glitch-pop...
-
LSU Now
All in all, give Dirty Projectors your love, and give this album a taste. It’s worth checking out their collaboration with such names as Empress Of, Haim, and Dear Nora.
-
The Student Playlist
After the harrowing self-doubt and heartbreak of ‘Dirty Projectors’, David Longstreth emerges into the light of hope and new love on ‘Lamp Lit Prose’.
-
Northern Transmissions
Their new record mixes a bit of a tonal throwback with so much experimental writing that it’s hard to keep up. Though it will likely take a few listens, there’s something complexly intriguing going on with Dirty Projectors’ writing that just doesn’t translate properly.
-
Straits Times
Compared with the lonelier, stripped-down predecessor, this record revels in communion.
-
The Arts Desk
Crisp and inventive production shine through a musical odyssey.
-
Exclaim!
Where Longstreth once isolated each of his artistic tendencies, he now seems more willing to let them occupy the same space, rubbing up against one another to create something altogether unique and truly joyous.
-
A.V. Club Music
Lamp Lit Prose suggests several new beginnings and an army of collaborators looking to help Longstreth find inspiration and passion among the ashes. That’s especially true in quieter moments like the tootling psychedelia of “Blue Bird” and the smoldering Badalamenti-isms of the closing track whose title sums up the album’s emotional content: “(I Wanna) Feel It All.”
-
Spectrum Culture
Dirty Projectors are back with Lamp Lit Prose, an album that feels like the purposeful antithesis of its predecessor.
-
DIY Mag
Buoyant and witty, and notably shy of meandering eight-minute odysseys.
-
FLOOD Magazine
Longstreth’s latest endeavor is superficially, temporarily enjoyable—but it disappoints all the same.
-
L.A. Weekly
Lamp Lit Prose album sees the current iteration of the group finding their feet.
-
Half-Past
All things considered, the album is a solid addition to the Dirty Projectors canon. While a few of the lyrics weren’t fully convincing, it’s nice to see Longstreth with a more optimistic outlook on love. The prominence of horns and more organic studio sound shows a comfortable middle ground between 2017’s Dirty Projectors and 2012’s Swing Lo Magellan, resulting in an eccentric album that’s worth a listen.
-
Too Many Blogs
Lamp Lit Prose might be the happier alternative to Dirty Projectors, but ultimately, is inferior in every other way.
-
Under the Radar Mag
That's Lamp Lit Prose then, a summer record full of love, guitars, and a far happier outlook than anyone would have expected from Longstreth a year on from the utter devastation of his last release. But a Dirty Projectors record sounding just like the last one wouldn't be much of a Dirty Projectors record now would it?
-
Mxdwn Music
Lamp Lit Prose is an album with no real direction or destination but it’s full of wit, charm and musical creativity. There is a song for everyone on this ten-track album and something around every musical chorus to discover.
-
The Aquarian
With an idea in mind, stories to tell, and love to profess David Longstreth hit the nail on the head with Lamp Lit Prose.
-
ISD News
For some, the novel style of band leader, Dave Longstreth can be unsettling, but for others it’s pure genius. The most recent album, “Lamp Lit Prose,” may be a game changer for those who have historically been only lukewarm for the D.P. sound.
-
All Music
This is very much David Longstreth's music, and it's heartfelt, passionate, and beguiling in the tradition of Dirty Projectors' best work.
-
Strand Books
In Dirty Projectors’ universe, there are the ‘concept’ records — The Getty Address, Rise Above, Mt Wittenberg Orca, Dirty Projectors [s/t] — and the ‘songs’ records: Bitte Orca, Swing Lo Magellan, The Glad Fact. Lamp Lit Prose is the latter — a stylistically diverse collection of absolute CHUNES — unified around a core of optimism, bonhomie and new love. This is what wild, new, risk-taking music sounds like, from an artist who puts his lyric and his lifeline on the line.
-
The Wee Review
A delightful and impressive return to form for indie oddballs.
-
SLUG Magazine
Lamp Lit Prose is a tight collection of tracks that will refresh your summer palate like a crisp, hoppy, hipster craft-brewed IPA. Seekers of funky, chunky and slightly oddball backyard patio tunes will appreciate this album, and listeners attentive to interesting and thoughtful lyricism will catch moments of verbal gold. If you solidly identify with any of these imageries, Dirty Projectors won’t likely disappoint this July.
-
Arena Music
It's the kind of positivity that, in lyric writing, risks triteness, but if the craftsmanship doesn't win you over by itself, bear in mind that Longstreth was in a much darker place a couple of years ago. His positivity is hard-won. And if last year's album was about coping and catharsis, this year's seems to furnish all the evidence you need that the recovery is going well. It's good news for Dirty Projectors and the music world alike.
-
Dork
Their ninth full-length offers up an optimistic look to the future of the group.
-
Fopp
Finest of all, maybe, is the closing (I Wanna) Feel It All, which has the feel of a ’30s jazz standard cut-up and warped with backwards drums. By the time Dear Nora, saxophones and massed harmonies appear, it’s become something that would fit on Smile, a modern psychedelic take on the Great American Songbook.
-
Secret Meeting
Lamp Lit Prose is most certainly a heterogeneous affair. But that is not a criticism. Despite lacking a narrow tightly reigned focus, its beauty definitely lies in its hop scotch, somewhat unpredictable nature.
-
Dolby Disaster
It is then, with joy, through this music, that we celebrate what often seems like our powerlessness, and it’s yours to own too proportional to your ability to put down your insecurities and ambitions and really enjoy this great, immediately permanent music.
-
Mystic Folks
While much of their previous work has found itself quite a challenging listen, 'Lamp Lit Prose' is easily their most accessible record to date. A beautifully written wonder of modern originality that time and time again throws up something new and fascinating to get your head around.
-
Chicago Reader
After a chilly breakup record, Dirty Projectors regain their bubbly ebullience on Lamp Lit Prose.
-
Rough Trade
Lamp Lit Prose is a REBIRTH: an album of new hopes, new ideas & new collaborators. Song titles read like breathless dispatch from a place of beginnings and elemental forces.
-
Buzz Magazine
Straddling the divide between chaos and order, the outfit prove that they have not lost the knack for playful revelry and off-kilter eclecticism.
-
Westword
Fans need not worry about the ambitious Brooklyn band anymore: The magic is back.
-
KUNC
At times the album feels like a collision of high-concept computer-production ideas. Yet for all the details, it's also a blast of energy — a magic pop elixir designed to help you forget whatever troubles you might be carrying around.
-
Patrick's Music Blog
Lamp Lit Prose doesn’t have a dull moment and is full of energy passion and optimism. And while it’s experimental in the sense that it’s not the inaccessible music you’ll, but it does enough to keep you on your toes track to track. It also doesn’t hurt all the features were strong as well. It’s easily my favorite Dirty Projector release since Bitta Orca and ironically enough it sounds much more unique to them than most of their self-titled album did last year. I’ll definitely be looking forward to where they go from here.
-
Herald Scotland
Thanks to Longstreth's care and sensitivity, the two elements balance each other out neatly, with the potentially jarring instrumentation adding flair to quite traditionally written songs.
-
wrongmog
Brighter, brassier and more free-flowing than most previous outings, Lamp Lit Prose can seem cussedly happy at times: there’s “Something sweet/ Something new” on Blue Bird, a song so blithe you could see Longstreth plying it on kids’ TV. He turns 23rd-century soulman on What Is the Time, as near to a conventional hit as this prodigious guitarist and fusioneer has essayed.
-
Mecca Lecca
African music has always informed the guitar playing of Longstreth, and on Lamp Lit Prose he appears to embrace that love more than ever. But that doesn’t mean that this is Dirty Projectors going afrobeat. This is their own thing with plenty of other musical styles intersecting, including a hint of doom/stoner metal on “Zombie Conquerer.”
-
Sound Mind
While I’m still not totally sold on the band’s stylistic U-turn with this album, Lamp-Lit Prose is hard to dislike. It’s not particularly adventurous and it can be argued that it doesn’t do anything that the band haven’t done better on past releases, but it’s still a lot of fun. And maybe that’s all some albums need to be.
-
Entertainment Weekly
If Dirty Projectors was the band’s long winter, the sonic equivalent of holding space within which their frontman could probe and process, Lamp Lit Prose is the resultant progress, a gratifying spring bloom bearing the sweeter-than-expected fruits of Longstreth’s labor.
Rate This Album and Leave Your Comments