Bitte Orca

Reviewing the version of Bitte Orca which leaked onto the internet two months before its official release date, Stereogum called the album "stunning" and "pay-off for joining Dave Longstreth on his years of recorded self-discovery."[19] Prefix called the album "a breakthrough, which filters their left-field avant aesthetics through more conventional song structures."[20]

Pitchfork awarded the album a 9.2 upon initial release, calling it "a testament to the leaps and bounds Longstreth has made as a songsmith and Dirty Projectors have made as a band."[15] Pitchfork eventually ranked Bitte Orca at number 2 on its 2009 "Best Of" list, and 56 on its list of the Top 200 Albums of the 2000s, as well as naming the track 'Stillness Is the Move' the second best track of 2009.[21] Rolling Stone ranked the same track at 85 in its 100 Best Songs of the Decade.

Time magazine listed the album as the "Number 2 Album of 2009" in the article "The Top 10 Everything of 2009", with writer Josh Tyrangiel noting: "The job of a music critic is essentially to describe music. For the past few years, the job of Dirty Projectors mastermind Dave Longstreth has been to make the critic's job undoable." [22]

The album placed 12th in The Wire's annual critics' poll.[23] Rhapsody ranked it #25 on their list of the best albums of 2009.[24]

Review aggregator website AnyDecentMusic? correlated 19 reviews resulting in an ADM Rating of 8.0.[25]

The album was also included in the 2011 edition of the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Commenting on the notion of "genre", Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear discussed Bitte Orca:[26]

Someone was asking me about what I was listening to and I was saying "Oh, Dirty Projectors, I love the new album," and they were like, "Well what kind of music is it?" and I just stopped dead in my tracks and literally didn't know how to describe it. At first I was embarrassed because I didn't know how to describe it, but then I was like, this is what's so amazing about a lot of music now. There are so many different things and there's so much going on and Bitte Orca is so distinctly Dirty Projectors that I didn't even know how to begin to describe what genre it is, you know? What would one categorize it as? So I find it hard lately to label things as indie or pop or folk or give it some sort of categorization.

• David Longstreth
• Amber Coffman
• Angel Deradoorian
• Brian McOmber
• Nat Baldwin (bass on tracks 2, 6)
• Haley Dekle (additional vocal harmonies on tracks 1, 2, 3, 8, 9)

• Jordan Dykstra – string quartet director, viola ("Stillness Is the Move", "Two Doves", "Remade Horizon", "Fluorescent Half Dome")
• Caleb Russell – violin ("Stillness Is the Move", "Two Doves", "Remade Horizon", "Fluorescent Half Dome")
• Andrew Todd – violin ("Stillness Is the Move", "Two Doves", "Remade Horizon", "Fluorescent Half Dome")
• Anna Fritz – cello ("Stillness Is the Move", "Two Doves", "Remade Horizon", "Fluorescent Half Dome")

• David Longstreth – producer, mixing, drum recording,
• Robby Moncrieff – recording engineer
• Nicolas Vernhes – additional production, mixing
• Brian McOmber – drum recording
• Joe Lambert – mastering

• Jason Frank Rothenberg – original cover photograph
• Rob Carmichael – album layout