Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

Timothy Leary championing acid>Magical Mystery Tour>LARGE GAP>Timothy Leary championing the internet>Pitchfork Media>Blogs>???>Animal Collective

most o_O timeline i've ever seen

I don't know about the hippie think but some AC stuff recalls Nirvana for me. 'For Reverend Green' especially. But the use of repetition in particular is very reminiscent of what Cobain did.

I bought this album the other day and listened to it a few times

it's okay I guess but seems kind of flat and snoozy until the last 3 tracks

Feels and Strawberry Jam and Person Pitch and Water Curses all had interesting textures + memorable melodies; this has the cool textures but I can't remember any of the songs once it's over

last night I fell asleep listening to Stars of the Lid on my stereo. this record was in the 4th slot of my 5-CD changer. I woke up in the middle of it and couldn't figure out what was going on at all. like, I knew I was listening to the new Animal Collective record, but the sounds didn't seem to be following any kind of logic. this actually made me a lot more curious about the album.

Andrew Bird's previous record has sold more than 100K...that chart placement isn't so unusual.

bump

why?

lol

Animal Collective

why?

lol

hahaha

Hahah I had been tempted to revive this thread with a 'well that all died out pretty quickly then.'

I saw Avey Tare* on the Subway. He had some newly purchased records and a weird-looking bundle of blankets or clothing.

*I could not actually identify him on sight as Avey Tare, I just recognized him as "I think that might be the guy from Animal Collective."

i don't know if it's just the mp3s i have or if these guys actually have no low end at all, but in any case they are way too in love with that upper-middle treble range. all that wind-in-the-willows babbling-brook shit, they need something on the bottom to keep it from just all washing away.

and i know that's the range they've always worked in, and i liked it early on when it was more clattery and less precious, but even the clattery stuff now to me seems wispy. it's like being assaulted by eggbeaters.

I can't deal with them. I keep trying (have been since Sung Tongs) but they just sound awful to me, they give me a headache inside seconds, and as much as I want to like them from all the descriptions, the reality doesn't have the melodies, hooks, or rhythms I feel like I've been promised. The last Panda Bear record was much more tolerable, but still... so thin, so irritating. My antipathy for them is so deep that I actually can't understand why anyone else would like them at all, which is pretty rare for me.

this got released on emusic last week by mistake

The last Panda Bear record was much more tolerable - to my ears this record is ultimately the logical conclusion (or next step, let's hope) of the sound cultivated on the Panda Bear record, so I can't really understand the basis of differentiation.

*of = "for"

The last Panda Bear is much less demanding of attention, much more low-key; it's earworms rather than bangers, it's amniotic rather than lysergic, it flows above you like liquid rather than flapping right in your face like a giant, colourful butterfly that's too close to see properly. It's still insubstantial, still all about treble, still laden with nasty vocal affects, yes, but it's not as keen to have your undivided attention.

sheesh

??

it's earworms rather than bangers - fair enough Mouthy, but I'll bet that "My Girls" sounds like Jesus shitting gold doubloons when played through your ultrapremium hi-fi gadgetry.

yes, i bet it sounds like a fancy version of shit

lol, but Jesus shits miracles.

maybe don't involve shit if you're trying to describe something good

thank you, I will hence refrain from using the phrase "good shit," lest I be mistaken for a coprophiliac.

i think with the above descriptions, nick's safely worked out why people like it and doesn't like it for those exact reasons. i kind of like the "butterfly" analogy and that's why i like a lot of the recent stuff at least. it's like looking at a jigsaw puzzle piece and trying to work out what the rest of the picture would look like i guess.

.. or a Cornershop fan.

this is weird because I agree with Nick that the last Panda Bear record was completely different from MPP, to the point where I am genuinely confused that people attempt to compare them; unlike him, however, I also really liked the last few 'proper' Animal Collective albums, making it doubly surprising that MPP does nothing for me.

i don't know if it's just the mp3

CLASSIC, 2009

The sound is quite similar, but the emotional tone is different. Some of Person Pitch sounds distressed or even mournful.

I. Love. This.

― Special topics: Disco, The Common Market (grimly fiendish), Wednesday, January 21, 2009 7:54 PM (1 month ago)

One month on, I'd go as far as to say I absolutely adore this album. Despite what Nick says above, all I hear are hooks and melodies; hooks upon hooks, melodies upon melodies. I really can't imagine ever tiring of listening to it.

In contrast I have to offer my experience of it forcing me to flee Amoeba Records when I reencountered it again. Three tracks in over their PA system and I surrendered, finished shopping and left before it drove me crazier.

I love how divisive this album is among people with otherwise (seemingly) similar tastes.

Yes: I've given up being surprised about that now. So when I met up with an old pal and gig-going companion of many years in the pub last night and said: "Oh, listen, you'll love the new Animal Collective" and he winced and told me he couldn't fucking bear it, it wasn't a shock at all.

i told an old pal the exact opposite of that at an excellent juana molina show last night. he's been out of the country awhile and missed out on the whole lol rickroll and then merry christmas day leak. it's all been a nice distraction during some seriously fucking bleak times

If I understand correctly, then, you're pro-Juana and anti-Collective?

pro-juana and pro-collective

Thank you, Sickamous Mouthall (Scik Mouthy). What you said.

MPP II: the backlash - A+, would backlash again

i don't know if it's just the mp3s i have or if these guys actually have no low end at all, but in any case they are way too in love with that upper-middle treble range. all that wind-in-the-willows babbling-brook shit, they need something on the bottom to keep it from just all washing away.

and i know that's the range they've always worked in, and i liked it early on when it was more clattery and less precious, but even the clattery stuff now to me seems wispy. it's like being assaulted by eggbeaters.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra), Saturday, February 21, 2009 11:23 PM

It absolutely must be the mp3s. I listen to the CD in the car and it's a trunk-rattling affair.

Nick Southall OTM. That's all I'll say about this record for now (apart from the fact it does *absolutely* zilch for me barring, say, "In The Flowers", with its (the record's) prevailing air of not entirely disagreeable if thoroughly surface-level "look at the pretty colours!" burblement, an array of bright (monotonously so; EVERYTHING is spangled) clothes strung out on a linear washing-line). We can wait for the dismal rush of year-end plaudits to rouse any actual ire.

I guess I think they could've profitably shaved about ten minutes off the album.

(Cue response from Ned: "I guess I think they could've profitably shaved about fifty-two minutes off the album.")

Oh why stop there, a full hour. Negative time.

fuck, this is an album of flabby time. of leaving your watch at the door. Of irresistible washes of Kompakt Pop Ambient interrupted with shrieks and washes of sound I can't really hate this album considering I waited so long for it. I kind of love it, for all its obvious arrival at this point, for all its obvious balearic chanting shouting sampladelic arrival. for the way it makes the journey from sung tongs to feels resolve, for the way the bass bows out of brothersport and the vocals dip and swerve and everything goes blue.

you could take the whole thinga away and you'd be missing the point, the point is those flabby expanses of wasted time, of swerving peaks and long days filled with sunshine and no reason to go home.

and you'd be missing the point.

Or I could just listen to something else I actually liked. :-D Which I will do!

That does sound like fun! : )

My Girls sounds quite like The Tough Alliance :)