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Song of the Earth is performed by Longstreth with members of his band Dirty Projectors — Felicia Douglass, Maia Friedman, Olga Bell — and the Berlin-based chamber orchestra s t a r g a z e, the album also features Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie), Steve Lacy, Patrick Shiroishi, Anastasia Coope, Tim Bernardes, Ayoni, Portraits of Tracy, and the author David Wallace-Wells.

Longstreth wrote the first draft in six manic weeks for a commission arranged by s t a r g a z e. He felt disoriented and also galvanized by the moment: the pandemic chaos, the ‘radical psychedelia’ of new fatherhood, the novelty of writing for large ensemble. Then he spent three years revising, rewriting, rearranging, and recording in studios and homes in the Netherlands, Los Angeles, and New York City.

Song of the Earth marks Longstreth’s biggest-yet foray into the field of concert music. It received its US premiere in a March 2024 sold-out performance at Disney Hall in Los Angeles with the LA Philharmonic. Work-in-progress performances also took place between 2022 and 2024 at the Barbican in London, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, and Muziekgebouw Amsterdam.

Just as Dirty Projectors’ Rise Above sounds nothing like Damaged — the Black Flag album upon which is based — Song of the Earth bears little resemblance to its namesake, Gustav Mahler’s 1908 song-poem Das Lied Von Der Erde. But Longstreth notes that “it is saturated with the Mahler work’s themes, feelings and spirit of dissolved contradiction.”