Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

The live show I saw in Berlin in October last year was totally a dance blissout, especially the encore which literally reminded me of "Higher Than The Sun" - a soundtrack for three wise men to travel across intergalactic rave lasers to offer exotic gifts to the starchild in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Closer to home, I guess the second half of "Derek" would be a good reference point too, but the live sound felt a lot fuller.

I'm just coming back from their Berghain show. Liked it a lot. It was very electronic at times, especially towards the end, almost ravey, in a way it reminded me of Underworld. But it was very apart from that it sounded very much like MBV to me. MBV without guitars. But as spacey.

"But apart from that it sounded very much like MBV to me."

Have there been any key live recordings in 2008? I've totally lost track.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14564305
this show form 2007 has most of the new songs on it.

Oh yeah, I have that on my computer already. Never listened to it though. Will remedy.

That live set has real moments of greatness.

The band that AC's development kind of reminds me of is A.R. Kane - with AC's earlier work corresponding to 69 and Strawberry Jam (and hopefully even more so the new album) corresponding to i.

There's that same sense that what starts out as a fascination for pretty-noise being... not abandoned... but recontextualised within a frame of stronger pop songs and hypnotic (v. v. loosely "dance") rhythms, in a way that makes what remains of the original aesthetic actually more precious (in both cases I'm confused by the tendency of people to prefer each band's earlier work).

Water Curses actually reminded me of tracks like "Conundrum", "And I Say" and "HoneySuckleSwallow".

i am very psyched to hear this based on the comments so far. animal collective is one of those bands that i have seen live (for sung tongs i think - it was amazing and wonderfully perplexing to the crowd) and have a few recordings by, but i never took the full plunge.

in both cases I'm confused by the tendency of people to prefer each band's earlier work

know nothing about AR Kane, but preferring AC's earlier stuff because it wasn't just pretty, or rhythmic, or noisy, or any one particular thing except on the verge of bursting into flames. it was disturbing + pretty, or sweet + noisy + scary, or combustible + hypnotic. I'm not as interested in seeing how artists even out over time, smoothing over rough edges to form something that's supposed to be "mature" or a synthesis of what they were driving at before. This happens to most people, artists or not. AC's stuff on Here Comes the Indian, say, was more interesting to me, sonically and certainly emotionally -- maybe because it wasn't "fully formed". That music leaves a lot more to chance, and imo is open to a lot more interpretation. given that it often still comes out weirdly, surreally pretty is kind of an amazing bonus.

Wow, you actually just put into words exactly what I wanted to say.

that is a great post dominique.

Yes, good post Dominique! I do disagree with it though.

"I'm not as interested in seeing how artists even out over time, smoothing over rough edges to form something that's supposed to be "mature" or a synthesis of what they were driving at before."

Dominique you say "I'm not as interested..." which implies you acknowledge this is a personal bias you bring to the table.

If we can agree that maturity or synthesis isn't a universal a priori good, we can probably also agree that the reverse holds true as well - that is, a band's incendiary early work isn't by definition its best. I don't think we can dismiss the possibility that sometimes a maturisation or "smoothing out" of a band's aesthetic can be a positive or productive process. At any rate for the most part I think such terms are applied too quickly and airily, and they ignore what I might call the complex topography of maturity. At this point many developmental arcs come to mind. Can going from Tago Mago to Future Days, Joni Mitchell from Blue to Hejira, Steely Dan from Countdown To Ecstasy to Aja. In each case what seems from one perspective to be a regrettable "smoothing out", "synthesis" of earlier ideas and general "maturation" of sound could equally be characterised as a transformation of the aesthetic landscape into something equally as spiky, as challenging, as difficult, as restless as the previous work.

More generally I think that notions of "maturity" in music are always rather controversial, and whenever people take a strong stand on this issue (for or against) it's usually at least partly a statement about themselves and how they relate to music. In response to this I feel it's important to establish a critical distance from such too-quick partiality. In the above examples I prefer the second album in each duo I listed, and while I might say "maturity" has something to do with it in each case, I could easily list several counter-examples pointing in the other direction. "Maturity" itself is not a property or essence but an articulation; it's the quality of the articulation that is important rather than the presence/absence of the property that is articulated.

In spite of my long screed, I would take issue with any attempt to equate synthesis with maturity, either in general or in the particular case of Animal Collective, though I'm not going to assume you're necessarily arguing that point.

In fact I probably have a corresponding (though opposing) bias in favour of a notion of synthesis that cannot be reduced to maturity or "smoothing out".

I love Here Comes The Indian but prefer Strawberry Jam because I discern in it the same sonic impulses working through and emerging out of a more defined song structure. This doesn't result in an inevitable taming or "smoothing out" of those impulses; if anything I'd argue that the sonic template (and its concomitant sense of possibility, unpredictability and ingenuity) is wildly expanded here; it's as if forcing their imagination through the narrow funnel of "the song" created an irrepressible and explosive friction, the tension between form (song) and content (sound) creating a fizziness and trembliness that is relatively absent in the earlier album because all those interesting sonic ideas have very little to bounce themselves off against. I feel like less is at stake when the songs wander off into noise on Here Comes The Indian because from the outset it presents itself as an excursion into noise (and surely the notion of noise being weirdly pretty is at this point a founding myth (though not an untrue one) of a certain brand of indie-rock and its familiars). In less generous moments Here Comes The Indian strikes me as almost secure in its attempt to play to a particular audience. Whereas Strawberry Jam seems to want to introduce different audiences to one another and watch to find out whether they make friends, war or babies - this isn't about seizing middleground consensus so much as engaging with the risk of confrontation.

Up to and including Feels I think your description of the band's narrative arc makes more sense, as everything up to that point involved a progressive structuration of the band's sound without a corresponding expansion of that sound. Strawberry Jam is the point where I think this story breaks down. This sudden flip (intensified song structure somehow leading into massively broadened sonic horizon) reminds me (as so much stuff does) of the beam of light refracted through the shard to produce a rainbow on the cover of Dark Side of the Moon, and I like the idea of bands subjecting themselves to a radical restriction of scope in order to bore through their own aesthetic into a new soundworld.

tim is otm about strawberry jam! i love much of their previous output, but strawberry jam really does feel like the birth of a new animal collective to me, one that's continued through water curses as well (though "seal eyeing" is very feels-y)

I completely disagree with Tim

TS: Tim or Dominique?

i think it's correct to say that a synthesis of smoothing out is not necessarily directly opposed to a honed complexity. the latter seems to be a more articulate way of stating the former. smoothing out doesn't always equate to less radical. maybe it's just more cerebral (another loaded word).

maybe it's more cerebral intuitive.

great posts by both Tim and Dominique, it saddens me that I can't agree with both.

I dunno that I really hear any kind of striving for "progression" or refinement or the synthesis yr speaking of in any of their albums. Which is part of why everything they do still excites me like few others can. Even Strawberry Jam and Feels, both pretty tight and closed machines of albums (more so SJ) that don't really have any of the kind of uneasy joy found in the loose threads of Here Comes the Indian, say, still sound to me like the products of a band whose primary drive (or one of them) is to not get at all comfortable, always put themselves out there in basically unknown territory. Everything they've done has managed to thrill me in a completely different way than what came before.

My only hope for this album is that I haven't familiarised myself with the new songs too much and maybe lose some of the impact. The last three albums I had heard the songs before but avoided listening to them too much, and that worked out pretty well.

I still think Strawberry Jam sounds like Arcade Fire.

have you listened to either?

anyway tim and dominique's posts - classics or duds?

i, as usual, am very excited to hear this.

i've seen them three times since strawberry jam and i recognize a few of the titles from the live show. 'No More Runnin' and 'Daily Routine' should be highlights.

what a great band.

Da, enlightening posts by Tim and Dom both, and at various times I have gone back and forth between their positions. My question would be, how long did that Here Comes the Indian moment last? I certainly wouldn't put the first two records in with HCTI, not even close-- they touch on some of those elements, but with far less success IMO.

i've always felt the same way, mark (if I read your comment the right way). The first couple or so I think served (at least for me) as just a way for them to figure out what worked and what didnt. Sometimes the result was forgettable, other times it was beautiful. it wasnt until they became fully formed as a band (around HCTI that those sounds and ideas morphed into fully realized concepts, and most of us can agree the rest is history.

closing parenthesis after HCTI

the first three tracks on Hollindagin are even better, i think, at presenting the early rawness and loose threads balanced with the power of a fully formed band.

better than HCTI, I mean.

People are anti-Feels around here? I could see the Strawberry Jam hate since it was their big album, but I think Feels is not only their good middle point but when they really started to hit their stride. I really can't see much noize-luv around here either.

― skygreenleopard, Thursday, October 9, 2008 11:32 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark

I was just reading through everything after my comment 5 days ago and realized I meant Sung Tongs, not Feels, as their turning point. Which isn't saying much or bringing anything new to the table, other than that I think it's my favorite AC album. I do, though, need to go back and revisit some old AC, Here Comes the Indians really is pretty good. A lot of what people are saying around here, especially Tim and Merdeyeax, make me want to go back and plays some of these albums again. And I do hope that new album has some good stuff on it. The tracklisting doesn't have that "walk around with you" song they played at their show last year - it was really good with the big show bass they had.

*Indian

this is way too much information but if you are interested in the MIX:

http://mixonline.com/recording/mixing/mixing_outside_lines/index3.html

will pull out the Animal Collective part:

While Allen’s discography is decidedly urban—having coming up engineering late-'90s New York City hip-hop and later helping to cultivate the Dirty South crunk movement—his work has attracted more rock bands lately, and most recently the uber-experimental Brooklyn art-rock band Animal Collective. “They hired me to record and mix because they wanted really aggressive low end on their new album,” he shares. “My background being in urban music, managing low end is one of the things I do really well.”

Just prior to hitting Chase Park Transduction Studios to mix the Animal Collective record, Allen describes the highly creative recording and pre-mixing process. “To get the low end they wanted, we set up four different reamping stations in the studio—using a Fender spring reverb, an Ampeg Portaflex bass amp, a little Gibson guitar amp and the huge QSC P.A. system they use for their live shows,” describes Allen. “They’d record things straight out of their samplers through the Neve 80 Series desk into Pro Tools, and then we’d reamp the kick drum or the snare drum or 20 snare drums or bass synth parts through one of those stations, pick the sound we liked best and record that back into the computer.”

Putting up room mics and reamping these low-end elements gives the band the “live” sound they’re after, as Allen explains. “We’re using that setup to create ambience that didn’t exist in the samples themselves, which makes them sound like a band playing in a room.”

Pre-mixing in-the-box throughout the recording process encouraged productive decision-making. “As each part gets recorded, and often triple- or quadruple-tracked, I take all those mics and run them through an aux input in Pro Tools and effect it at that stage, and get a balance,” he explains. “So once I open up the Pro Tools sessions, the rough mixes are all balanced, and in mixing it becomes a question of what will be up front and what will go behind? Also, we’ve left it open enough so that we can make decisions on how much room—or dirt—we want on the sound, or how closed and tight we want it to feel.”

Going into the mix, Allen shares, “The whole vibe is to have this really tight and punchy low end, like a New York hip-hop record, and then this really washy Beach Boys–style vocal approach. We went and bought a bunch of spring reverbs and cheap reverbs on eBay that we’re going to use for vocals, a lot of which are triple- or quadruple-tracked.”

Allen will use his 32 channels of outputs to submix on the Sony MXP-3036 console at Chase Park, and plans to experiment extensively with both outboard and plug-in processing while mixing with Animal Collective. “They’ve booked two weeks to mix 12 songs and they want to experiment as much as possible,” Allen adds. In addition to effects pedals and plate reverbs, Allen talks up some highly creative plug-ins, noting that he plans to use Audio Ease’s Speakerphone plug-in on Animal Collective tracks. “Instead of just EQ'ing a big mid-boost and cutting the low and high end to get a radio effect, with Speakerphone you have 30 to 40 models of all these different devices—walkie-talkies, P.A. systems and megaphones—and all these different environments,” he describes. “It’s infinitely tweakable, an awesome plug-in.”

didn't like Strawberry Jam but am liking the production talk

I like the emphasis on low-end - their show last year had the rumble of a rap concert. Maybe it was just the sound in the Fillmore but it was eerily intense. Combined with the repetiveness of the Strawberry Jam songs and the jammy nature of the songs, it was kind of an endless bass stomp (in a good way). I'm excited to hear the new one.

They’ve booked two weeks to mix 12 songs and they want to experiment as much as possible.

you think?

When I saw them in dublin the low-end was unbearable, it was great! But there was so many people talking really loudly around me (the very front) about having a gang gang dance t-shirt and "being into good music", then they complained that this concert was crap because the sound guy hadn't a clue!

"walk around with you" song = Summertime Clothes

The videos from the midi fest are pretty good too.

http://myanimalhome.net/images/invite.jpg

am probably gonna go to this, having never been to a listening party before. i wonder whether it will be cheese and wine or hushing and reverence.

that clip above's so amazing.

http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/index.php?blog=6&p=992&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#more992

guess I'm the only one who'd like MPP to sound less like Person Pitch

Avey is so hot in that

i remember the first time i saw them being really alarmed that he could actually do that larynx-scream on-cue, not just in the frazzled after-eight-hours-of-singing-twist-and-shout way.

http://myanimalhome.net/images/merriweatherCVR.jpg

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-slowburner.gif

guess I'm the only one who'd like MPP to sound less like Person Pitch

― sonderangerbot, Thursday, October 23, 2008 12:10 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

ur not btw

i thought the panda songs on strawberry jam that sounded like more refined versions of person pitch songs were great but i wouldn't want all of mpp to sound like that necessarily

is that the cover? it's moving.

i will be mega disappointed if this ends up sounding like person pitch

also that cover is neat and all but i was hoping it would look like the pic in the original post which is gorgeous and actually made me really excited about the music!

yeah i agree

Really? I was desperately hoping that wouldn't be the cover, it's got a kind of wannabe Dave McKean/earnest Tori Amos "goth"-lite ickiness to it. To me, anyway.

I'm expecting something closer to the Panda tracks on Strawberry Jam perhaps crossed with "Safer".

Did I miss something? Is Panda Bear taking the driver's seat this time around?

Personally I'm hoping it takes off from Strawberry Jam. I liked the direction they were going.

no

I haven't felt the urge to listen to this record in aeons... although for some reason or other 'Also Frightened' appeared out of nowhere in my head the other day.

Raggett N (2012). Personal interview. 19 October 2011.

I tried to listen to it 21 times in a row last year, but only made it 6.

This album

pretty crazy that this thread had no posts for 9 years. i'm guessing there was a poll for this album

did that one guy ever get to take his trip to Africa?

Did he ever get his four walls and adobe slabs?

they moved to an annual subscription model iirc