The first time we heard about Peter Silberman's project The Antlers was when they released the lineup for the 2009 Pitchfork Music Festival. That year alone, we were inundated with releases from an army of fellow Brooklyn indie-hipster bands like Dirty Projectors, Real Estate and Bear In Heaven, and, really, we just had it up to our eyelids with that particular scene. When we had the opportunity to catch them at the Fest on that cold, rainy Saturday afternoon underneath that canopy of of tall, slender birch trees that dot the landscape of the C-Stage, we were taken a-back by the unadorned, yet complex beauty of their performance. The combination of Silberman's willowy falsetto and warm, glowing electric guitar and the rain falling ever-so-gently upon us seemed to transcend the hipster the electro-afro-beats that dominated that year's sound aesthetic. more ›

The Dirty Projectors' new album Bitte Orca is already popping up on "album of the year" lists, and while we find such evaluation to be criminally premature, the disc is certainly one of the most arresting listens we've recently encountered. Usually when one bandies about the "difficult to categorize" terminology in music reviews it means the reviewer thinks the tunes are simply weird but is afraid to make a judgment based on that for fear of looking out of touch. In the case of The Dirty Projectors, it's an excellent description though if you pressed us we'd describe it as ethereal indie funk. more ›