Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

(Which now that I think about it makes me think that a possible positive role model for MPP would be Vision Creation Newsun -- earlier I was considering vague parallels, ie band established with a certain kind of earlier sound and focus gets to the point where they build up to a monstrously perfect album in a different but related vein that becomes *the* album for a good number of people from that point forward, and which works with electronic elements in a very 'natural' sense, for lack of a better word.)

Ned, you literally read my mind here. I've been saying and thinking this exact same thing since I first heard the album.

As for Alfred's comment about "I'm really lost in your curls," this is where I find the Beach Boys comparison apt, in that a line like this is, ostensibly, excessively whimsical, to the point that it inadvertently comes across as odd and creepy. The big exception is that there never feels like a release in any of Brian Wilson's mind games, whereas with this band--at frustration's breaking point--the singer shrieks his brains out. But Beach Boys comparisons end there.

Ned, you literally read my mind here. I've been saying and thinking this exact same thing since I first heard the album.

I'm not alone!

This, along with mentions of The Soft Bulletin and me talking about Loveless, along with a random mention of the Avalanches's Since I Left You, was making me mull over the idea of connecting threads between them all, not entirely in terms of style but certainly in terms of treatment of sound beyond the 'basics,' whatever those are meant to be. Also, emotionally connecting threads -- for lack of a better term (as I said, I was mulling this over), I came up with the phrase 'decentered exultance,' where each of these albums I've mentioned, and many more could be suggested, builds beyond the idea of just being a 'studio creation' or hard to replicate live into some sort of fundamental questioning of the band model as received. This even as most of these acts *did* perform live in a band setup, of course.

Nothing formal about any of this, I'm thinking out loud here -- it might just be more a function of the rhetoric around each of those releases that makes me think of possible connections.

whereas on previous animal collective outings i got the sense that the band struck some of the more thrilling moments by accident with the tendency to circle around and play out ideas in almost ambivalent fashion till songs reached their culminating point, this new record is all very measured and focused, and the frequent astonishing bits seem very pointed and deliberate. i'm really fascinated by Merriweather Post Pavilion and it really surprised me by how direct and immediately enjoyable it was. love it.

maybe on an ipod u retard?

^^^

I've been listening to this album almost non stop for a week now and it's really wonderful (I had never heard anything from them before). it opens up after each listen to reveal great songwriting and arrangement ideas (the much delayed and only once used chorus in "also frightened" for instance or the beautiful harmonies backing the smoothly sung melody in "bluish"... and of course the insane and infectuous african like melodies/harmonies in "brothersport").

The only problem I have with this album is, um, the problem I had with Strawberry Jam. Both feel like they a precursor to something bigger and better. Like, "these are the two albums in which we learn to play our new synths properly and integrate them into what was an indie folk band, and now we present what you've been waiting for..."

well, who cares if the actual result is good !
if the following is even better, i'm all for it.

Yeah, I say that in with good intentions, and for the most part really like MPP.

that said, as I haven't heard any of their previous stuff (just got "person pitch" but haven't listened to it yet). Since I love this one, which album would be worth getting ?

just work your way back

but from what I've heard/read, strawberry jam is pretty different, no ?

It's the most similar to Merriweather of the AC back catalogue.

ok, I'll see that, then.
thanx !

nothing they've done quite sounds like MPP in my view (though as stated above, 'strawberry jam' probably comes the closest.

and in terms of quality, everything prior to MPP except for 'here comes the indian' seems remarkably even in quality to me. so my advice to anybody would be to listen to them all. that said, i rarely make it all the way through the back half of 'sung tongs', whereas 'feels' and 'strawberry jam' have a really logical and enjoyable structure that makes them nice to listen to from beginning to end.

Spirit they've gone:treble heavy Canterbury whimsy folk
Danse Manatee: Like this, more treble, more hiss and noisy elements
Here Comes the Indian:Echoey Boredoms circa Super AE pop music
Campfire Songs: As described
Hollindagain: Inscrutable free folk buried in ambience and tape hiss.
Sung Tongs: Hyper structured free folk with bizarre layered chanting vocals.
Prospect Hummer: rippling arrangements and Vashti Bunyan
Feels: Even More Ripple, keyboards and chanting.
Strawberry Jam: Electronic first go, very compressed sounding, the second half is almost good enough to make up for the first
Water Curses: the bridge between Strawberry Jam and MPP

also, that's a shame, We Tigers and Mouth Wooed her are two of the highlights of ST

The only problem I have with this album is, um, the problem I had with Strawberry Jam. Both feel like they a precursor to something bigger and better. Like, "these are the two albums in which we learn to play our new synths properly and integrate them into what was an indie folk band, and now we present what you've been waiting for..."

― a hoy hoy, Wednesday, January 14, 2009 7:27 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Their first 2 albums (in 2000 and 2001) had tons of synths

I admit I laughed.

pretty ironic that a blog that's basically an internet semen stain can make that joke

It's all a cycle!

a unicycle

Like a wheel within a wheel.

Ah right, that place. Pretty funny.

Hey guys

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/illusion/illusions.htm

Scroll down to the coffee beans, then scroll down below

MIND FUKKIN BLOWN D00D lulz

I saw Rick Astley's face in the coffee beans.

Never gonna cross your eyes
Never gonna disfocus...

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd120/hipsterrunoff/jesus.jpg

It indeed it a pretty funny blag, that one.

2nd it=is

The best thing I've read on them

(no rickroll)

Yeah, that's a great review, both of what they gain on MPP and what they lose. Fantastic record, btw. First I've so much as liked since Sung Tongs, and I'm thinking it's a good deal better than that.

lol just came to post that hipster runoff post def most important thing written yet on the animal collection

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2009/01/animal-collective-is-a-band-created-byforon-the-internet.html
http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2009/01/animal-collective-is-a-band-created-byforon-the-internet.html
http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2009/01/animal-collective-is-a-band-created-byforon-the-internet.html

That VV review strikes me as fair but is this:

They've exposed the young white world to dub, South American, and African styles;

True in any capacity?

Vampire Collective oh wait.

jamesblountonelinersexplainedatgreatlength.jpg

They've exposed the young white world to dub, South American, and African styles;

True in any capacity?

― call all destroyer

Of course not. I just pretended they didn't write that part. Like it was something the editor put in. Plus it's more an aside than thee point, so let it pass.

yeah, thats some BS. the internet exposed the young white world to dub, S. American, and African styles. also TV.

also PAUL SIMON

yeah it was in that zone of being a throwaway line yet also a ridic bold sweeping statement

Maybe these are things the young white world is constantly being exposed and reexposed to. And maybe AC are doing this as others before them have done. Not defending the argument, exactly, but I can see as how it might have been intended as less of a "big statement" than it seems.

YWW

: what's on your ipod?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/sftw/article2110883.ece

lol at the pictures

I'm gonna listen to this album tomorrow -- is there any chance I'm gonna like it?

not as good as the eagles beating the giants mordy :D

But what could compete with that????

exactly so youre gonna have to lower yr standards

but srsly if you wanna give it a try, make sure it's high quality.

I have a new year's resolution though; No matter how much I may hate Merriweather, I refuse to spend posts on this thread bitching about it.

hipster runoff and anything of its ilk is the aids of the internet, and is exactly everything it claims to oppose.

u r so close to getting the joke - keep goin buddy

I have great love for your posts ice cream but i don't believe you on this one!