Amber Coffman at the Dirty Projectors’ 2009 Black Cat show. Photo by Valerie Paschall

The Dirty Projectors are a completely different band than the one that recorded The Glad Fact in 2003. In truth, most fans of the band probably don’t even know about their early records, and leader David Longstreth has put them in the past as well. Today’s Dirty Projector’s are an art-rock band that desperately wants to be a pop-soul group, and their version of pop-soul sounds very different from the mainstream definition of the term. Over the course of the past three records starting with 2007’s Rise Above, a sort-of cover album of Black Flag’s Damaged, Longstreth and his secret weapon Amber Coffman have distorted the line between genres and created something wholly contrived and unique at the same time.

Yet if the sets from their 9:30 Club performances are of any indication, Rise Above has been left in the past as well. In fact, at their second sold-out show at the 9:30 Club on Saturday night, the Dirty Projectors only touched on the last two albums, 2009’s Bitte Orca and this year’s fantastic Swing Lo Magellan and a couple songs from their collaborative album with Bjork.

They started with the least poppy track from the Swing Lo Magellan, “Maybe That Was It,” only the four core members, Longstreth, Coffman, bassist Nat Baldwin and drummer Michael Johnson appeared on stage. Back up singers/multi-instrumentalists Olga Bell and Haley Dekle joined afterwards, adding their chirping vocals to the mix after the heavy, loping intro. They were a particularly welcome presence during the vocal heavy “When the World Comes to an End”. The track off Mount Wittenberg Orca was both a curveball and a highlight.

No matter how wild their sound can get, like the heavy riffing on Swing Lo’s first track “Offspring are Blank”, the band remained focused and totally in control pumping out studio-perfect versions of their latest songs. Longstreth was fully professional throughout, but his foil, Coffman, really started the party. During their rendition of highlight “The Socialites” Coffman waltzed around the stage and had her diva moment, which she reprised as she shook hands with the front row during the beginning of “Stillness Is the Move.”

The band closed with a pitch-perfect rendition of “Unto Caesar” that while excluding the studio dialog from the album, was still pleasing. The encore started with the Bonus Song of the Day from Friday, “Dance For You” before ripping through the crowd pleaser “Stillness is the Move.” “Stillness” the hit that put the DP’s on the map sounded great but felt rushed, almost as if the band felt obligated to play it. “Impreganable Question” ended the show on a softer note.

Openers Wye Oak (to whom Dirty Projectors dedicated “Cannibal Resource”) were on their A-Plus game. The band are currently writing songs for their new album and they played a few of them to the rapt audience, while still touching on material from their last album Civillian. A fan had made a sign for Wye Oak, an unusual sight at indie rock shows, requesting them to play an older track. The band didn’t know how to do it, but they promised they would play it when they return to D.C. in September at the Black Cat.