Live: Dirty Projectors at Disney Hall

Leading his band, Dirty Projectors, on Saturday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, David Longstreth kept folding his long, gangly frame toward the floor, as though he were trying to avoid being noticed.

Dirty Projectors released one of last year’s most celebrated indie-rock discs, “Bitte Orca,� and Longstreth, one presumes, has long since grown used to playing in front of the type of crowd that views a concert as an excellent opportunity to tweet.

The seated Disney audience, though, entertained no such distractions, listening with laserlike focus as Longstreth and his Brooklyn bandmates, along with the New York chamber ensemble Alarm Will Sound, performed Dirty Projectors’ 2005 album, “The Getty Address.�

Halfway through the hourlong piece, the singer-guitarist seemed to seek refuge from the spotlight by pulling a hood over his head.

As uncomfortable as he may be with such concentrated attention, Longstreth writes music that demands it.

Described by the composer as an opera that “examines the question of what is wilderness in a world completely circumscribed by highways,� “The Getty Address� jams together darting string arrangements, thudding percussive grooves, elaborate vocal harmonies and quasi-Asian guitar riffs; the libretto follows a fictional character named Don Henley (based on the Eagles star) on a complicated journey across the American psycho-ecological landscape.

Last year, “Stillness Is the Move,� an irresistible avant-funk cut from “Bitte Orca,� became something of an indie-scene hit for Dirty Projectors; it even earned a widely circulated cover by Beyoncé’s sister, Solange Knowles.

But “The Getty Address� offers a bold reminder of Longstreth’s background in (and continuing commitment to) experimental art music in all its challenging structural complexity.

At Disney Hall, the thrill of Dirty Projectors’ performance came from watching how closely the musicians followed the contours of Longstreth’s compositional idiosyncrasies.

Utilizing traditional instruments as well as beer bottles and a roll of duct tape, the members of Alarm Will Sound replicated the album’s quick digital edits, while Dirty Projectors’ Amber Coffman, Haley Dekle and Angel Deradoorian complemented Longstreth’s yelping lead vocals with precise pointillist bursts and ghostly, elongated oohs.

Near the end, in a climactic passage titled “Finches’ Song at Oceanic Parking Lot,� the voices of the three women locked into a kind of collective consciousness, hanging together like a flock of birds through a series of jarring melodic leaps.

Prior to “The Getty Address,� the Los Angeles Philharmonic performed a brief program of pieces that Longstreth had selected by Ligeti, Wagner and Ravel.

Following the main event, Dirty Projectors returned to the stage and played pared-down versions of Bob Dylan’s “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine� and tunes from “Bitte Orca,� including “Temecula Sunrise,� in which Coffman, Dekle and Deradoorian repeated their flock-of-birds trick over Longstreth’s African-inspired guitar filigree.

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