Not only is Brooklyn’s Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca the best album of 2009 (barring some incredibly great record that is released in the next three months) I believe that it will also go down as one of the most solid musical achievements of the past decade. Composed by music-savant Dave Longstreth, Orca also features talent all the way down the line in Angel Deradoorian’s multiple instrumentals (and vocals), Amber Coffman’s angelic birdsong, and Brian Mcomber’s highly skilled percussion. The record nails that highly prized sweet spot between art and popular culture: it is eminently more listenable than a Black Dice album, for instance, but no less intellectual. Consider the singles “Cannibal Resource” or “Temecula Sunrise,” both are catchy numbers but they are also songs that utilize out-of-left-field timing, non-standard song structures, and Longstreth’s far from orthodox guitar chopping. The record builds on each band member’s strengths with success as well, as in Coffman’s vocal opus “Stillness is the Move” and Deradoorian’s wistfully sweet “Two Doves.” Drummer Mcomber skillfully manipulates the time signatures in every track, and throughout the effort Longstreth’s hand is consistently at the tiller. If the Dirty Projectors’ The Getty Address (2005) is their Brothers Karamazov, then Orca is their Crime and Punishment: it should be required listening in all American schools.

Dirty Projectors “Cannibal Resource” (mp3)

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Also: More from Culture Bully’s Best of the Decade