Song of the Day | Dirty Projectors: Cool Your Heart

Dirty Projectors have a knack at making things seem easy. It’s this sleight of hand that makes the band so intriguing. With the single “Cool Your Heart”, off their upcoming self-titled album due 02/24 (Domino Records), Dave Longstreth and company use this skill to their full advantage. Joined by D∆WN, with some behind-the-scenes help from Solange Knowles, “Cool Your Heart” sneaks up you so subtlety that before you have even realized it you are already neck deep in a hook that just won’t quit. The production featured here is dazzling. A slow build of a faux dancehall groove that stops and starts in bursts and by the time the chorus hits it has transitioned into its own, completely original thing.

The video, directed by Noel Paul and Stefan Moore, is the perfect visual representation of the track. So deceptively simple the clip features Longstreth and D∆WN walking up a stretch of nowhere while the song, and footage, bump back and forth in time around them. It plays out as some kind of alternate reality hip hop video. Just like their music, though, the band and their directors subvert things enough that by its conclusion they've made it authentically their own.

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