It has been a great year for intelligent, experimental American pop: Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear and Dirty Projectors all released breakthrough albums that brought the bands to wider attention. But it was more a case of the bands accommodating their audiences than vice versa – in all three instances this was their poppiest, most accessible music to date.
Bitte Orca was a sort of US counterpart to Micachu and the Shapes' Jewellery in that it nodded, albeit obliquely, to chart pop and R&B. Amid the eccentric drum patterns and jolting rhythms there were moments of sweetness – even if those moments were likely to be interrupted by an abrupt change of tempo or seemingly incongruous keyboard figure as DP mastermind David Longstreth pursued his own unexpected melodic path.
Longstreth's sugary falsetto recalled that of cerebral pop-funker Green Gartside of Scritti Politti, and indeed on Bitte Orca he seemed to be pursuing a project, similar to that of his 80s forebears, of engagement with contemporary black dance music. Stillness Is the Move, sung by DP girl Amber Coffman, has some of the hi-tech sheen and avant-garde arrhythmia of Timbaland's team-ups with Aaliyah, where the gorgeousness comes at you in fragments and bursts. The crossover aspect came full circle when the track was covered by Solange Knowles, bringing a slice of this avant-pop masterpiece to a completely new audience.
