Tour of (Musical) Baltimore

Dreary though the weather, last Thursday was a night of music fun and glamour at the (Baltimore) symphony: the 5-year contract extension (Marin and the orchestra commit to share their love--at least through 2015!), the backstage antics (yes, they have those--now musicians, please take your awesome selves to the lobby after the last curtain call. Your fans want to swoon over you.), and Jennifer Higdon's shy reports of star spotting (as in: she was, in traffic--Amanda has the details).

And then the sun finally came out (and just in time) for the Metro Gallery's outdoor Rufustival 2009. The line-up was truely impressive, and the vibe on par with a P.S. 1 show imported for an intimate Baltimore crowd. We stopped by in time to catch Chairlift (you know them from their iPod Nano commercial soundtracking) and Wye Oak (sounds like all the indie rock I've ever loved, compressed. I'll now be listening to them obsessively for the next few days). Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner signed off the stage with a nod to what she termed the "best band in the world," and the festival show-stealer was indeed the up-close-and-personal appearance we got from Dirty Projectors. Loved them before, love them even more now. Their new album, Bitte Orca, drops tomorrow, but you can stream the tracks on NPR (of all places) right now here. (Go now!!)

If you do nothing else today, I don't think you'll regret giving it a listen. When you get to "Remade Horizon," note the vocal magic that begins at 2:37. How the lovely ladies of Dirty Projectors pulled off that kind of hocketting live in a parking lot still sets my mind spinning. Now I have all kinds of nerdy compositional questions for Dave Longstreth and his crew.

*Dirty Projectors, Photo by Sarah Cass