Dirty Projectors‘ new song Keep Your Name tellingly opens with (wedding) church bells that go to glitch. So life has apparently gone for leader Dave Longstreth and a lost love of his. In the opening lines of the song, Longstreth lays open his ventricles with, “I don’t know why you abandoned me, you were my soul and my partner, what we imagined and what we became, we’ll keep ’em separate and you keep your name.” The song manages to be complex, inventive and multi-dimensional all at once, and bodes incredibly well for the impending new album from the band, their first in four years following their breakthrough Swing Lo Magellan. Check it out below via the song’s superb, official video in black-and-white directed by Longstreth and Kanye West’s associate, Elon Rutberg. We love Longstreth’s affected and heartfelt vocals, the sample from the band’s own 2012 song Impregnable Question, the rapped interval (couldn’t agree more with the Gene Simmons assessment), and the inventive electronic mix. With Keep Your Name, Dirty Projectors are giving Bon Iver a strong run for best production of 2016. Lyrics at bottom.

Keep Your Name:

“I don’t know why you abandoned me
You were my soul and my partner
What we imagined and what we became
We’ll keep ’em separate and you keep your name

You keep your name
You keep your name
You keep your name
You keep your name
You keep your name

There is a place that we both know
It lives in our hearts, we built it together
Fear is a manacle but love is unchained
So we’ll keep ’em separate and you keep your name

You keep your name
You keep your name
You keep your name
You keep your name

[Rap]
I wasn’t there for you
I didn’t pay attention
I didn’t take you seriously and I didn’t listen
I don’t think I ever loved you
That was some stupid shit
I wanted what you wanted but we never really felt the same
I kept my name ’cause we were just different
Your heart is saying clothing line
My body said Naomi Klein, No Logo
We shared kisses and visions
But like KISS shithead Gene Simmons said
A band is a brand and it looks that our vision is dissonant

You always hurried to grow up
I think I’ll always just feel kinda the same
What I want from art is truth
What you want is fame
Now we’ll keep ’em separate and you keep your name

You keep your name
You keep your name
You keep your name”