Dirty Projectors & Bjork release track from ‘Mount Wittenberg Orca’ expanded edition

Back in 2009, Bjork and Dirty Projectors played a collaborative show at NYC's Housing Works. It was born out of a Stereogum tribute to Bjork's 1995 album, Post, which featured among its tracks Dirty Projectors covering "Hyperballad." Brandon Stosuy, who was working for Stereogum at the time, organized the the very intimate show. There were a number of songs written for the performance, inspired by a conversation between Dirty Projectors' David Longstreth and Björk about "the small theaters in Italy where opera was born in the 1500s," and some of those ended up being re-recorded at Brooklyn's Rare Book Room studios for a 2010 collab EP, Mount Wittenberg Orca.

That EP getting a vinyl reissue on Saturday for Record Store Day 2023 and has been expanded into a double LP set. The expanded edition includes 13 bonus tracks of never-before-released material, including the full Housing Works performance from 2009, early demos of Mount Wittenberg Orca, and rehearsal recordings.

“Mount Wittenberg Orca might be my favorite thing from this chapter of Dirty Projectors," writes Longstreth now. "It feels like sort of a dark horse in the catalog. Which I guess is kinda funny, considering it’s a collaborative record with Björk. We were overwhelmed with the hype around the band at the time and purposely under-messaged it. But I love these songs. And as a basically live-in-studio album, it’s the only official release that shows how this lineup really cooked as a band. The performances and engineering hold up really well. And of course Björk elevates us to a different level of protean majesty. I remember being spontaneously in tears during her vocal takes for ‘Sharing Orb.’ I’m also excited to share the original Housing Works show, in its raw beauty, as well as the writing tapes and rehearsals that show how the whole thing came together. Thanks for listening.”

You can check out "On and Ever Forward (Live from Housing Works 2009)" from the expanded edition, where Bjork, Longstreth and Dirty Projectors vocalists Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian and Haley Dekle put together complex vocal acrobatics. Listen below.

If you're in Los Angeles, Longstreth will be DJing at Amoeba Music on Saturday from 4-5 PM as part of their RSD23 festivities.

Mount Wittenberg Orca - Expanded Edition:

Side A
1. Ocean
2. On and Ever Onward
3. When the World Comes to an End
4. Beautiful Mother

Side B
1. Sharing Orb
2. No Embrace
3. All We Are

Side C
1. Intro (Live from Housing Works 2009)
2. Ocean (Live from Housing Works 2009)
3. On and Ever Onward (Live from Housing Works 2009)
4. When The World Comes To An End (Live from Housing Works 2009)
5. Beautiful Mother (Live from Housing Works 2009)
6. Sharing Orb (Live from Housing Works 2009)
7. No Embrace (Live from Housing Works 2009)
8. All We Are (Live from Housing Works 2009)

Side D
1. Wave Invocation (MWO I Inverness Demo)
2. Motherwhale Song (MWO II Inverness Demo)
3. Whale Watcher Song (MWO III Inverness Demo)
4. Fugal Swim (MWO IV Inverness Demo)
5. First Duet (MWO V Inverness Demo)
6. Migration (Unfinished MWO VI Inverness Demo)
7. Jubilation (MWO VII Inverness Demo)
8. Benediction (MWO VIII Inverness Demo)
9. When the World Comes To An End (Freewrite Demo)
10. When the World Comes To An End (Vocalise Rehearsal Rough)
11. Beautiful Mother (Vocalise Rehearsal Rough)
12. On and Ever Onward (Full Rehearsal Rough)