Best New Tracks - Pitchfork: “Little Bubble” Sounds Like Time Collapsing

---

“Little Bubble” Sounds Like Time Collapsing Posted: 05 Jan 2017 08:56 AM PST Two years ago, writing on Solange's website about D'Angelo's Voodoo for its 15th-anniversary, Dave Longstreth said the album "collapses time, it feels eternal." He found in those enduring grooves "an alternate reality where traditionalism and technology aren't at odds." With the release of "Little Bubble," the second new song from Longstreth's Dirty Projectors in recent months, it's clear he could just as easily have been talking about his own music. The new song is a decidedly digital ballad that touches on ancient themes ("I want to be dead," Longstreth croons), where distended noises more often associated with glitchy mp3s are strangely at home beside a sumptuous bed of Rhodes, strings, trombone, and, as ever, Longstreth's melismatic vocals. The public uncertainty surrounding Dirty Projectors' current lineup status, after Longstreth was the only member credited on September's divorce-tinged stunner "Keep Your Name," may offer temptation to interpret the bittersweet refrain—"We had our own little bubble/For a while"—through the lens of the band's biography. But if the heartbreak conveyed in these intricately unwinding melodies might convincingly reside at Longstreth's studio desk, it could also be anyone's post-breakup anguish. Or it could refer to a more global tragedy. Or is this a comment on our gadgets? Our social-media insularity? Emerging from a hiatus, Longstreth's recent work seemed to contradict Dirty Projectors' narrative of a sometimes-showily virtuosic band learning the power of simplicity. "Keep Your Name" included a spoken-word section that came awful close to rapping, which was a sharp departure from any storyline about artists softening their weird edges. Yet, scarcely a week later, Longstreth contributed extensively to Solange's magisterial Seat at the Table. With the narrative a little derailed, it'd be hard to make predictions about year-end, let alone tomorrow, but right now, "Little Bubble," sounds like time collapsing.