Since its formation, Dirty Projectors has released eight full-length studio albums, with the project featuring major contributions from co-lead vocalist and guitarist Amber Coffman from 2006 to 2013.
Featuring lead vocals from Longstreth, Coffman, and Angel Deradoorian, the album received widespread critical acclaim and increased the band's exposure significantly.
Dirty Projectors became a full band once again in 2018 with the addition of co-lead vocalists Felicia Douglass, Maia Friedman and Kristin Slipp to tour in support of Lamp Lit Prose.
[3] This resulted in the album, The Graceful Fallen Mango, that was released in 2002 under his own name and introduced his distinctive use of song arrangements and his combination of lo-fi and hi-fi production.
[8] With the help of Adam Forkner of Yume Bitsu, Longstreth recorded and released The Glad Fact on the Western Vinyl label under the name "The Dirty Projectors" in 2003.
The album introduced the band's distinctive contrast between Longstreth's vocals and the hocketed harmonies of Amber Coffman and Susanna Waiche, who was later replaced by Angel Deradoorian.
That year, the band also collaborated with David Byrne on the song "Knotty Pine" for the compilation album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization.
“Stillness Is the Move" was the first single released from Bitte Orca, a West African and alternative R&B-influenced hybrid, sung by Coffman and inspired by the Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire.
[13] On May 8, 2009, members of Dirty Projectors collaborated with Björk to perform an original composition by Longstreth, written for five voices and acoustic guitar, as part of a charity concert to benefit Housing Works, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing shelter for homeless men, women, and children suffering from AIDS.
It marked a return to the group's solo roots for Longstreth (who at this point relocated to Los Angeles, California to build a recording studio called "Ivo Shandor"), introduced a more electronic-based alternative R&B sound, and addressed his breakup with Coffman, his former bandmate and girlfriend.
[2] The following year, on July 13, 2018, Dirty Projectors released their eighth album, Lamp Lit Prose, after teasing three singles, "Break Thru", "That's a Lifestyle", and "I Feel Energy".
The recordings of these arrangements, which provide the backbone of the EP's sound, were initially made with Chris Taylor in 2008 as orchestral reinterpretations of 2007's Rise Above, and then re-sampled by Longstreth in the production of Earth Crisis.
[35][36] In a 2009 interview, Longstreth embraced some of these comparisons but expressed a dislike for several of those musicians, commenting, "Steely Dan is a band I’m not that into," "I’m not a huge Yes guy," and "Frank Zappa I fucking hate.