Each installment has been its own stylistic and emotional ecosystem, featuring band members Maia Friedman, Felicia Douglass, Dave Longstreth and Kristin Slipp taking turns in the lead vocal spotlight. Now, that mosaic ideal of the full-band Dirty Projectors is recapitulated as their voices come together all at once on the fifth and final 'Ring Road' EP.
Along with the release of ´Ring Road´, the entire sequence of EPs is available today as a single cohesive twenty-song anthology. Titled '5EPs', the collection spans the existential folk of 'Windows Open' sung by Friedman, Douglass's future soul on 'Flight Tower', Longstreth's endless melody on 'Super João', and the recomposed orchestral glitch that backs Slipp across 'Earth Crisis'.
As everyone trades verses on ´Ring Road´, these closing four songs serve as conversations among a group where “every member is talented enough to be the lead” (Time). With three- and four-part harmonies, dual guitar lines, ecstatic hooks and the propulsive drumming of Mike Johnson, the emotional and sonic threads of the previous entries are filtered through classic signatures of full-band Dirty Projectors. As Entertainment Weekly says, “[5EPs] captures a more intangible motif: the celebration of creativity and the fortuitous bonds that form.”
Listen here to the final 'Ring Road' EP.
