Horror 张洪泰 Dirty Beaches

Never one for easy categorisation, the on-going adventures of David Longstreth’s Dirty Projectors project are especially genre-agnostic on the 5 EPs released throughout 2020. The neatly-titled 5EPs collates these songs into a mammoth compilation. Each set of songs sees a different band-member taking over lead vocal duties, and indeed the flavours of these tracks stretch the breadth and width of the musical spectrum. The likes of ‘Self Design’ and ‘Empty Vessel’ deal in funk and house-inspired rhythms, while ‘Moon, If Ever’ and ‘I Get Carried Away’ are staunchly minimal in instrumentation, but undeniably 1960s pop in melodic sophistication.

External Combustion – the second album and first as band leader of the Dirty Knobs – is proof that lightning can strike twice. His first record, Wreckless Abandon, was released in November 2020 to a great reception, gaining attention from Broken Record, Vulture, WTF with Marc Maron podcast, LA Times, Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, Billboard and many more. The Dirty Knobs made External Combustion in three weeks over the summer of 2021, and "The band became this spontaneous type of combustion”, Campbell recalled, recounting how the band became more intuitive the longer they played. Campbell claims he was never offered a solo deal in his four decades with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, despite also writing and producing for artists like Roy Orbison and Don Henley. "I wouldn't have known what to do with it," he adds quickly. "I was Tom's partner. Lyrics and singing – he could always do it much better. But I was writing and recording more music than Tom could deal with. That's when I got the Dirty Knobs, which gave me a chance to try singing. So I started woodshedding. And then when my life changed (with Petty's death in October 2017) it was, 'Time to do this now.'"

Dirty Three have a gift for creating unforgettably emotive instrumental soundscapes, and Horse Stories demonstrates this to great effect. The versatility of Warren Ellis' violin playing is what drives Horse Stories, but although the violin is the focal point, Mick Turner's guitar and Jim White's drumming are vital elements in making Dirty Three's sound so compelling. The tracks here are widely varied, from slow, languid pieces like "1000 Miles" and "At the Bar" and wild dances like "Red" and "I Remember a Time When Once You Used to Love Me" to stunningly beautiful tracks like the aptly titled "Hope." It is fitting that Horse Stories helped Dirty Three reach a wider audience than they had with their earlier efforts, as it was an album that saw them reach new heights in creativity.

Recorded live at the House of Blues in South Carolina, this Widespread Panic date featured the addition of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band playing alongside them. It makes for an entirely different 'spread show to be sure…

Dirty Blues Band (1967). While the Dirty Blues Band's self-titled debut is nothing more than an ordinary late-'60s blues-rock record, it has its value as a curiosity. That's due to the presence of a 19-year-old Rod Piazza on lead vocals and Glenn Ross Campbell, formerly of the great but obscure psychedelic group the Misunderstood, on steel guitar. Unfortunately, Campbell, who had been unleashing unearthly astral leads in the Yardbirds-like Misunderstood less than a year prior to the September 1967 recording of this LP, sounds far less imaginative and special in this context. His steel leads are decent, but nothing to make you sit up and pop your eyes…