Slaves' Graves & Ballads is the third album by experimental rock

Experimental rock

Experimental rock or avant-garde rock is a type of music based on rock which experiments with the basic elements of the genre, or which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique....

 band Dirty Projectors

Dirty Projectors

The Dirty Projectors aka David Longstreth includes Amber Coffman , Angel Deradoorian , Brian McOmber , Nat Baldwin , and Haley Dekle during live performances...

. It is a combination of two EPs

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

released in 2004, titled Slaves' Graves and Ballads, hence the name of the LP combination of the two. The two EPs have drastically different sounds, with the first being front man Dave Longstreth singing and playing guitar over a small chamber orchestra called The Orchestral Society for the Preservation of the Orchestra and the second half being just Dave and his guitar. When they were originally released, tracks 1-7 were Slaves' Graves and tracks 8-14 constituted Ballads.

Track listing

1. "Somberly, Kimberly" - 1:22
2. "On the Beach" - 3:40
3. "(Throw On) the Hazard Lights" - 4:11
4. "Slaves' Graves" - 3:03
5. "Grandfather's Hanging" - 3:31
6. "We Are Swaddled" - 1:25
7. "Hazard Lights (Reprise)" - 2:02
8. "A Labor More Restful" - 3:41
9. "Unmoved" - 3:01
10. "Ladies, You Have Exiled Me" - 2:54
11. "Because Your Light Is Turning Green" - 3:15
12. "Obscure Wisdom" - 1:34
13. "This Weather" - 2:27
14. "Since I Opened" - 3:19

• Tracks 1-7 recorded in Dwight Chapel, New Haven, CT in December 2002.
• Tracks 8-14 recorded at Dub Narcotic Studios, Olympia, WA and Southbury, CT between July and August 2002.
• Tracks 4-6 form one continuous suite of songs.