dirty projectors

[2] Solange, ‘Losing You’

Solange

Solange Knowles is a hipster. Just look at those hips move!

She’s also a great popstar who possibly never will be. That’s all about where you align yourself too – no one ever had No.1s hanging out with of Montreal, Dirty Projectors or Dev Hynes. I met Hynes about four years ago, standing at the back of a We Are Scientists gig. I asked him what he was doing there and he told me he was a friend of the band. Five minutes later he’d disappeared only to burst onto the stage with a grin as wide as his hat, toting an acoustic guitar. That’s what he does, pop up all over the place having a whale of a time and alchemising absolutely zero hits.

In Solange he has a muse for his True Blue instincts and in purely melodic terms it’s working just fine. In fact, in pure pop single terms it’s working just “fantastic” according to Junior 2 and I’m right there with her. ‘Losing You’ is sweetly heartbreaking but so spry it feels like hope. Still, the whoops and clattering beats are just the party happening outside while Solange frets within.

Junior sulks about the strawberry bits in her yoghurt. Somewhere a clock chimes.

[11] Dirty Projectors, ‘Stillness Is The Move’

So Junior preferred this challenging little time signature-defiling tune-meshing number. I should introduce her to Pitchfork. She did a rather alarming Beyoncé tush-shaking routine to it, laughed at the word “Dirty”, joined in with the “Oh oh oh-oh oh-woah-oh”s and rounded it all off with a game of musical statues – which is probably what the Projectors were aiming at. It’s pretty clear they weren’t trying to be covered by the X Factor winner.

I don’t know whether DPs are massively ahead of the game, or just have the compositional skills of cheesecake. They’re prodigiously talented, happen upon the odd moment of real beauty and doubtless nark off pop classicists everywhere. Bravo? Bravo.

Isn’t life under the sun just a crazy dream?