Dirty Projectors bassist and Seacoast resident Nat Baldwin talks about the band’s new album and flourishing career.

Kittery resident Nat Baldwin has toured five continents as bassist for the Dirty Projectors. He’s played in the shadow of breathtaking mountains in Japan. He’s performed on the “Late Show with David Letterman” and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” He’s recorded with Björk and shared the stage with The Roots and David Byrne.

But perhaps Baldwin’s most cherished memory to date with the Projectors is of recording the band’s latest album in the attic of a house near the Catskill Mountains last August. Front man David Longstreth had written about 70 new songs and beats during a prolific 12 months in the house, located in Delaware County, New York. The band learned and recorded close to 50 of those songs in a single month.

“It was incredibly intense,” Baldwin said. “We were just up in that attic for these crazy marathon days. It was pretty awesome.”

The resulting album, “Swing Lo Magellan,” came out on July 10. It represents a new peak in the Projectors’ already storied career, with 12 songs that are more polished and digestible than any of their previous work, yet still maintain the avant-garde, exploratory edge that has made this band a darling of both fans and critics.

Seacoast music fans have known Baldwin since well before the Dirty Projectors rose up from the indie underground. He has released three solo albums, the first two on former local label Broken Sparrow. The third, “People Changes,” came out last year on the Projectors’ label, Western Vinyl. Trained under free jazz pioneer Anthony Braxton, Baldwin’s distinctive voice and virtuosity on upright bass have earned him widespread esteem. He’s also lent his talents to other area bands.  

Baldwin was touring as a solo artist when he first met Longstreth, the singer and guitarist who founded the Dirty Projectors in 2003. Longstreth had seen Baldwin play at Wesleyan University during a show that also included sets by Little Wings and Tiger Saw. The two later played a show together, and Longstreth soon recruited the bassist to tour with the Projectors in support of their 2005 album, “The Getty Address.”

At the time, Longstreth was using a rotating cast of musicians to fill out the Projectors’ lineup. Baldwin played upright bass during those first shows, but he began making the transition to electric bass on subsequent tours.

“It slowly morphed into me just pretty exclusively playing electric,” he said. “It was, at first, an uncomfortable adjustment, but also really a fun challenge.”

Baldwin continued to play with the Projectors for the next several years, appearing on the “New Attitude EP” in 2006 and “Rise Above” in 2007. He then stepped away from the band for a couple of years, but returned in time for their next release, 2009’s “Bitte Orca.” By this time, the band had established a consistent lineup with Longstreth on lead vocals and guitar, Baldwin on bass, Brian McOmber on drums, and the harmony vocal trio of Amber Coffman, Haley Dekle and Angel Deradoorian.

“Bitte Orca” vaulted the Projectors to a new level of success. They toured Europe, Australia, Japan and parts of South America. Audiences gobbled up their experimental rock sound, featuring jagged meter changes, African rhythms, and intricate contrapuntal voice techniques. One night, during a concert at The Bowery Ballroom in New York, The Roots and David Byrne joined them onstage.

During a break from their touring schedule in 2010, they recorded a seven-song EP with Björk called “Mount Wittenberg Orca,” a benefit album supporting a National Geographic project to protect wild ocean reefs. Longstreth wrote all the music and Björk contributed vocals. Baldwin said the Icelandic star was “up for anything,” accepting direction from Longstreth and inviting feedback about her singing.

“She was really nice and really sweet and really cool to work with,” Baldwin said, noting all the Projectors are “huge fans” of Björk. “(It was) awesome to see how cool she was about jumping into our world. She was really enthusiastic about it.”

As the “Bitte Orca” tour ended, the band members went their separate ways. Longstreth moved into that house near the Catskills in January 2011 and started writing songs for a new LP. He wrote freely and feverishly, recording dozens of demos and sending them to the other band members. Baldwin first visited the house in February and went over some of the material with Longstreth.

“Dave was just constantly writing. He wrote so many songs,” Baldwin said. “We had to play a lot of them through to see what was going to work and what was going to make sense to focus on and turn into something larger.”

The full band returned to the house in August and spent a few days simply hanging out and reconnecting. Then their work began in earnest, with Baldwin and McOmber recording their instruments live, and Coffman and Dekle later adding vocal parts (Deradoorian is on hiatus from the band).

Baldwin said the intensive process and rural setting resulted in an album that’s more intimate and straightforward than the Projectors’ previous records, which were “sort of dominated by more elaborate orchestrations.”

“It was sort of clear that it was more about the songs and the band and us playing together and the live experiences that we’d created over years of touring, and just serving the songs that Dave wrote. And I thought immediately they were his best batch of songs, so it was really fun to be part of that whole process of recording,” he said.

Critics have repeated that “Swing Lo Magellan” is the Projectors’ most “accessible” album, without as many scattered tonal changes and complicated arrangements as their other records. A glaring example is the title track, a light and agonizingly pretty song that reflects Longstreth’s interest in simpler songwriting.

“He’s obsessed with Dylan and Neil Young,” Baldwin said. “He’s always been a great songwriter, but what has gotten more attention (in the past) is the orchestrations and some of the instrumentation or whatever, the way it’s put together.”

The group’s trademark eclecticism is still on display throughout the album, though, from the inflected percussion of “About to Die” to the haunting harmonies of “Gun has no Trigger” to the psychedelic sound of “Maybe That Was It.” But there are also stripped-down, rootsier songs like the closer, “Irresponsible Tune.”

According to Baldwin, the band did not deliberately set out to record “accessible” music. But they did want to make an album that sounded different, and that made the songwriting stand out more than the orchestration.

“Dave, as a songwriter, just wants to write what he feels and whatever comes out, that’s what he’s going to go for,” he said. “You want it to be different and have its own identity, especially now that the discography is growing, and there is so much variety. So I think this one definitely does set itself apart.”

Regardless of its accessibility, “Swing Lo Magellan” is the Dirty Projectors finest effort yet. The band is touring in support of the new disc, and the current leg will end with a show at the Paradise in Boston on Sunday, Aug. 19. They’ll play a few festivals in September before heading overseas in October.

Baldwin spoke to The Wire from Denver on July 20, where the Projectors had a show at Bluebird Theater. When the touring slows down, he’ll return to Kittery and focus once again on his solo career. Despite all the highlights of his time with the Dirty Projectors, his favorite moments are occurring on a near-nightly basis.

“I just like every day of life with them,” Baldwin said. “I’m going to love this show in Denver tonight. It’s all fun.”

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