Animal Collective | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Creating a twisted musical language all their own, Animal Collective grew from a closely knit group of childhood friends with exploratory tastes into world-famous pop stars, defining the face of independent experimental rock during the era when they were at the height of their powers. The band acted more modularly than most indie rock outfits of their time, with various members coming in and out of the fold on different albums, and being independently active with solo work. Teenage interest in Pavement, Pink Floyd, and Sun City Girls expanded into an appreciation for more and more experimental sounds as the band developed and began incorporating the influence of minimal techno, Krautrock, avant-garde composers, and slasher movie soundtracks. Relocating from the Baltimore/Maryland area to New York City for college, early iterations of the band performed alongside like-minded noise rock acts like Black Dice and Oneida, and released albums that would switch gears from one release to the next between sprawling, uneasy experimental sounds to placid backyard acoustics. The band broke through critically with 2004s freak folk classic Sung Tongs but reached new levels of commercial success with 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, an album that saw the culmination of their most melodic songwriting impulses, more electronic-leaning production and just enough of their signature weirdness to retain their exploratory spirit. Having progressed from playing art-damaged gigs in New York dive bars to headlining world-renowned music festivals, Animal Collective stayed true to their roots and continued challenging the limits of their sound, even as their audience reached unforeseen levels. The origins of Animal Collective started with a group of teenage friends in Baltimore County, Maryland discovering music together in the mid-90s. Less concerned with being part of any local scene than they were with inhabiting their own insular orbit of hanging out and playing with sound, they started off playing covers and messing around with effects pedals before writing songs of their own. The group included David Portner, Noah Lennox, Josh Dibb, Brian Weitz, and others. An early incarnation of the teenage collective came in the form of indie rock band Automine, who went so far as to self-release a 7” single in 1995. The core of what would become Animal Collective really took shape when the group parted ways to attend college, and delved deeper into experimental music, culture, and their own solo work. Opting to take stage names, Portner became Avey Tare and Lennox Panda Bear, and while living in New York, the two laid the groundwork for Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished, an album mostly written by Portner that was released in 2000 under the moniker Avey Tare & Panda Bear on their own Animal label. The next year, Weitz (now known as Geologist) joined in to collaborate for a second album, Danse Manatee, as the group fell in with New Yorks art-rock scene. Black Dice was one of the standout bands of that scene and soon invited the collective (billed as Avey Tare & Panda Bear) out on a lengthy tour that exposed them to the freakier fringes of outsider music happening across the country in the early 2000s. In 2003, the far more folksy and ambient album Campfire Songs emerged, a collaboration between Portner, Lennox, and longtime collective member Josh Dibb (Deakin), making his debut appearance on the groups recordings. While the bands flexible approach to personnel on each given record wasn’t standard practice for indie rock bands, it would follow them for much of their run, with albums materializing that included duo, trio, and quartet formations of the band. 2003 also saw the release of Here Comes the Indian, an album that would retroactively come to be known as the fourth Animal Collective album but was the first to include all four members of the group and bear the Animal Collective name. Gaining more and more visibility, the group decided that they needed a blanket band name that would identify their work rather than the multiple variations theyd used up to that point. Here Comes the Indian was a murky and troubled album, made in a period of rough touring and personal transition, and the sounds reflected the tumultuous lives of their creators. The next year, Lennox and Portner toured under the Animal Collective moniker as a duo, opening for Four Tet and mum, and playing spare folk songs that concentrated on vocal harmonies and interplay between simple, acoustic instruments. These songs took shape while touring and would ultimately become Sung Tongs, the 2004 album that broke Animal Collective through to legions of new listeners as the mysterious and beautifully fragile album garnered waves of positive critical responses and took its place as one of the better quality examples of the freak folk movement in progress during that time. In the same vein as Sung Tongs, the band issued the Prospect Hummer EP early the next year, a collection of collaborative tracks made with reclusive British acid-folk legend Vashti Bunyan. The band’s next full-length, Feels, arrived in the fall of 2005, reuniting all four bandmembers and adding outside musicians for the first time with contributions from violinist Eyvind Kang and pianist Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir. More in the realm of known song structure than anything the band had attempted before, Feels was an ecstatic album of joyous psychedelia and damaged but catchy melodic rock. It set the stage for a sound that would be expanded on with 2007’s Strawberry Jam, the band’s first outing for Domino Records. 2007 would also be an enormous year for Panda Bears solo work with the release of his third album, Person Pitch, a gloriously strange pastiche of samples, vocal harmonies, and pop melodies that critically eclipsed Animal Collectives output of the same era. This momentum led to 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, the groups eighth album and a confluence of enhanced electronic production, pop appeal, and inspired experimentation that resulted in their most accessible material to date. It cracked the Top 20 in America and peaked at number 26 in the U.K., making Animal Collective the toast of the international blogosphere while also establishing their strength as a commercial force. Touring kept them busy for much of the year, but they did find some time to return to the studio and finish a short EP, Fall Be Kind, which appeared in November. In 2010, the group expanded its experimental sound into the visual realm with Oddsac, a "visual album" that featured new material as the psychedelic soundtrack to a film starring the members of Animal Collective and directed by Danny Perez. Their next proper full-length, Centipede Hz, followed in 2012 along with an EP of remixes from the album entitled Monkey Been to Burn Town in 2013. Side projects, DJ sets, and family occupied the bandmembers until they reconvened in the spring of 2015 to work on new material. Eschewing reverb, ambience, and long developments, and calling it "our Ramones record" in a Rolling Stone interview, 2016s Painting With featured appearances by John Cale and saxophonist Colin Stetson. Two EPs were released by the group in 2017: the first, The Painters, was a companion to Painting With and continued that records hyper-maximalist approach; the second, Meeting of the Waters, featured Avey Tare and Geologist revisiting their comparatively more organic roots. They returned as a trio (sans Panda Bear) in 2018 for the release of an audio-visual album, albeit in collaboration with the art/science duo Coral Morphology; Tangerine Reef commemorated the 2018 International Year of the Reef and was released simultaneously with a film of the same name. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 24 Title: Hollinndagain Released: 2002 Tracks: 7 Duration: 41:35 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 I See You Pan (10:24) 2 Pride and Fight (11:24) 3 Forest Gospel (04:23) 4 Theres an Arrow (03:04) 5 Lablakely Dress (05:23) 6 Tell It to the Mountain (04:37) 7 Pumpkin Gets a Snakebite (02:18) |
| Hollinndagain : Allmusic album Review : Originally issued as a limited-edition LP, Hollinndagain is a live album recorded during American performances in 2001. Seven tracks and just over 40 minutes in length, it stands as one of the earliest recordings by Animal Collective. Their transcultural technological brand of post-postmodern tribalism is already in play here. Static opens the set for the first four-and-a-half minutes of "I See You Pan," only to be added to by solo voice, a simple childlike keyboard line, and harsh white noise that dissolves by the end of the cuts nearly 11-and-a-half minute length, only to be segued into the glorious "Pride and Fight," a transmutational campfire song if there ever was one. Using an organic Native American rhythmic approach -- via the sound of bare feet on a floor and a Björk-like sung line in the lyric, where high moaning chant is atmospherically treated with another voice, lapping over, slipping, and sparsely circling around, one can hear the skeletal formation of the sonics that went into creating Here Comes the Indian issued nearly two years later. Its quite beautiful; it feels natural and relaxed and is just out of its head, off its nod creative. By the time you get to the percussion orgy that is "Forest Gospel," youre ready for anything as listeners. One can only speculate as to what it might have been like to witness this performance. This is the terrain that the Virgin Prunes were trying to mine in their brief but entirely adventurous run. "Tell It to the Mountain," is another, briefer such exercise, full of off-the-rail drums and chanted vocals. The remaining three tracks are studies -- if you will generously allow them to be called that -- in free-form electronic and vocal freakout, and they simply dont work because the playfulness and musicality at the heart of Animal Collective is missing and the direction is far from focused. That said, Hollinndagain is worth the purchase price for the first two cuts -- "I See You Pan" and "Pride and Fight" alone, which will claim nearly half-an-hour of your day, or night, should you choose to allow them to transform you into a pre-verbal child again. This is an indulgence thats warranted, and among the first recorded attempts by this wild and wonderful group to go past the norms of all things in "alterative culture" in order to create an adjoining, but wholly different sonic universe. | ||
 | Album: 2 of 24 Title: Here Comes the Indian Released: 2003-06-17 Tracks: 7 Duration: 44:34 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Native Belle (03:52) 2 Hey Light (05:41) 3 Infant Dressing Table (08:35) 4 Panic (04:48) 5 Two Sails on a Sound (12:20) 6 Slippi (02:49) 7 Too Soon (06:27) |
| Here Comes the Indian : Allmusic album Review : Informed in equal parts by acid-fried psychosis, crop-circle field recordings, and an elephants-on-the-loose circus thrash aesthetic, Animal Collectives fourth full-length album rests roughly at the meeting point between psychedelic, noise, and folk music. Here Comes the Indian begins gently enough with "Native Belle," a moody set piece that belies the albums clatter with 12 minutes of constrained rhythmic builds, drones, and squeaks. Things quickly explode with the searing "Hey Light," a lightning bolt of electrocuted brass and human wails that sends the album careening into psychoactive delirium. Since everything that follows -- from the shrieking brattle of "Two Sails on a Sound" to the enchanted tribal vocal exercises of "Slippi" to the slow-building celebratory scuttle of "Too Soon" -- feels similarly crazed, drug-induced, and apparitional, Here Comes the Indian makes for particularly lucid listening. Brash, crass, and texturally magnificent, this is well worth seeking out. | ||
 | Album: 3 of 24 Title: Spirit They’re Gone Spirit They’ve Vanished / Danse Manatee Released: 2003-10-06 Tracks: 22 Duration: 1:47:55 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Allmusic Wikipedia Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Spirit They’ve Vanished (05:35) 2 April and the Phantom (05:53) 3 [untitled] (02:58) 4 Penny Dreadfuls (07:58) 5 Chocolate Girl (08:28) 6 Everyone Whistling (01:00) 7 La Rapet (07:52) 8 Bat You’ll Fly (05:03) 9 Someday I’ll Grow to Be as Tall as the Giant (03:10) 10 Alvin Row (12:39) 1 A Manatee Dance (01:02) 2 Penguin Penguin (02:15) 3 Another White Singer (Little White Glove) (01:58) 4 Essplode (03:23) 5 Meet the Light Child (08:44) 6 Runnin the Round Ball (02:07) 7 Bad Crumbs (01:43) 8 The Living Toys (07:48) 9 Throwin the Round Ball (01:35) 10 Ahhh Good Country (08:18) 11 Lablakely Dress (02:38) 12 In the Singing Box (05:36) |
 | Album: 4 of 24 Title: Sung Tongs Released: 2004-05-03 Tracks: 12 Duration: 52:57 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Leaf House (02:42) 2 Who Could Win a Rabbit (02:21) 3 The Softest Voice (06:45) 4 Winters Love (04:55) 5 Kids on Holiday (05:46) 6 Sweet Road (01:20) 1 Visiting Friends (12:38) 2 College (00:53) 3 We Tigers (02:43) 4 Mouth Wooed Her (04:24) 5 Good Lovin Outside (04:26) 6 Whaddit I Done (04:04) |
| Sung Tongs : Allmusic album Review : On Sung Tongs, their first record distributed by FatCat, the two-man Animal Collective come on like sun-scorched acid eaters gathered around the campfire, strumming and grinning while they weave their material out of cyclical singalongs and tight harmonies. Surprisingly, both for fans as well as new additions, that marks a much more accessible sound for a group that had previously probed the outer limits of prog and psychedelia. (Still, back to basics is the right place for a collective that released three albums in 2003.) Immediately called to mind here are the Holy Modal Rounders and, to a lesser extent, the Incredible String Band. While Animal Collective certainly dont share the intimate knowledge of folk music or the expert musicianship of the Holy Modals or the ISB, they do understand the importance of repetition in reaching altered states, and they indulge in many naturalistic post-production enhancements to get there. "Leaf House" and "Who Could Win a Rabbit" open the record with a cozy atmosphere created from soaring harmonies and Beach Boys-type bungalow percussion. From there, with only a few exceptions, Sung Tongs devolves into the loosest of jam sessions, a midsummer nights dream of pixilated picking in similar company with the lengthy mid-album interlude ("Green Typewriters") during the Olivia Tremor Controls Dusk at Cubist Castle. Although the duo didnt record nearly enough material to justify checking out quite so soon, Sung Tongs is a striking record, a breath of fresh air within experimentalist indie rock. | ||
 | Album: 5 of 24 Title: Prospect Hummer Released: 2005-05-16 Tracks: 4 Duration: 15:43 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Its You (03:39) 2 Prospect Hummer (04:40) 3 Baleen Sample (05:05) 4 I Remember Learning How to Dive (02:17) |
 | Album: 6 of 24 Title: Feels Released: 2005-10-14 Tracks: 9 Duration: 51:51 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Did You See the Words (05:15) 2 Grass (02:59) 3 Flesh Canoe (03:44) 4 The Purple Bottle (06:48) 5 Bees (05:38) 1 Banshee Beat (08:22) 2 Daffy Duck (07:34) 3 Loch Raven (04:59) 4 Turn Into Something (06:29) |
| Feels : Allmusic album Review : While critics found it easy to lump Animal Collective in with the freak folk scene after the strumming madness of Sung Tongs, Feels may cause them to revise their opinions -- slightly. First, this is more of a rock record, especially early on; the frequent cymbal crashes and pounding drums leave little doubt. Second, Feels has less of the aimless meandering of many artists in the freak folk scene. AC can, and do, explode at any second, and their whirl of musical ideas -- mostly naturalistic, such as intricate vocalizing or tribal drumming -- can become dizzying, but gleefully so, not in a disorienting way. (Imagine Fiery Furnaces condensing an entire album down to three minutes and youll begin to understand the sound of the second song, "Grass.") So, while the folk tag has become less of an issue, freak still applies with no doubt. A core strength of the group is its ability to sound invigorated and bracing when exploring territory often surveyed in the past. Rock music can be a constraining form, especially at this late date, but the group sounds freer than ever before, almost as though theyve never bothered with rock in their lives, and have only happened upon a bare few LPs before beginning their recording career. (If so, one of those would have been by Mercury Rev, although Animal Collective are much less patient in building to a climax -- "The Purple Bottle" has at least a dozen of them.) As on Sung Tongs, the first half is active, direct, and punchy -- nearly overloaded with production and ideas -- while the second half explores quiet, abstract moods, often with only a few tremulous vocals accompanied by autoharp. | ||
 | Album: 7 of 24 Title: People Released: 2006-11-13 Tracks: 4 Duration: 18:56 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 People (06:21) 2 Tikwid (04:18) 3 My Favorite Colors (01:51) 4 People (live) (06:25) |
 | Album: 8 of 24 Title: Strawberry Jam Released: 2007-09-03 Tracks: 9 Duration: 43:35 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Peacebone (05:13) 2 Unsolved Mysteries (04:25) 3 Chores (04:30) 4 For Reverend Green (06:35) 5 Fireworks (06:51) 1 #1 (04:33) 2 Winter Wonder Land (02:45) 3 Cuckoo Cuckoo (05:42) 4 Derek (03:01) |
| Strawberry Jam : Allmusic album Review : The Baltimore-bred, Brooklyn-based Animal Collective have made a name for themselves by being something wholly other. Their music is convoluted, ecstatic, cluttered, noisy, scratchy, itchy and downright fun. Their last two full-length albums, 2003s Sung Tongs and 2005s Feels, create an acid campfire sing out -- with everyone singing a different blissed-out tune in as obnoxious and wildly creative a manner as possible. Sounds are layered on sounds are layered on sounds and are then separated seemingly at random. But Avey Tare and Panda Bear know exactly what they are doing. There isnt anything remotely excessive about ACs excess. They have, until now, presented a holistic view of the individual through the guise of consensus-building pop noiseadelia. With Strawberry Jam, the orgiastic aural carnival sideshow begins to change a bit. There is a growing tension at work here in the music. There is Panda Bears warm, bubbling sunshine pop thats as childlike as Brian Wilsons or Bobby Callendars. Hes got the cosmic vibe that expresses itself as goodwill toward everything. Its full of padded moments and long, shimmering, blanketing heat. Check his wonderfully accessible hippie blurt in "Chores" when he exclaims: "...Now I got these chores./Im never gonna hurt no one...I only want the time/to do one thing that I like/To take a walk in the light drizzle/At the end of the day/When theres no one watching." Who knows whos stoned on what? Acid is too easy for this kind of happiness. On the other hand, there is Tares utter sense of alienation, his strangeness -- and estrangement -- from the limits and inconveniences of the human body and its politics, and his questioning of his own place in human relationships and interactions. It too can express itself as a kind of manic glee, but its far more brittle. That said, it makes for an utterly compelling, even obsessive listen. The single "Peacebone" that opens the album in a blur of synth and electronic noise breaks loose into a whirring, beat-driven pop song with a messiness in the mix and hallucination-inducing lyrics: "A peacebone got found in the dinosaur wing/Well I was jumping all over while the fuse was slowly shrinking/There was a jugular vein in the jugulars girl/was supposed to be leaking into interesting colors..." On "Unsolved Mysteries" with its sampled strings and pump organ, he begins to engage: "...Why must we move on/From such happy lawns/Into nostalgias pond/And only be traces..." and then begins to grate with his questions, observations, and neurosis. Thank goodness: these two and their partners in crime are human after all! David Bowie, Philip Glass and Brian Eno can only dream about having been creative enough to come up with "Fireworks #1." Sure, their collective influence (Terry Rileys too, but hes on another plane altogether -- hes not predisposed to such abject "seriousness") may indeed have inspired the songs hypnotic glam ambiences, but they could never have glued it all together so loosely or gleefully. "Winter Wonderland" by Tare is another adrenaline infused orgy of manic musical happiness, even if the lyrics state otherwise. Its got that AC thing where overdrive into infinity is not just a choice but an M.O. The set closes with Pandas "Derek." Its among the most beautiful and tender songs hes written. Mid-tempo and relatively stripped down for AC, the vocal is a Beach Boys styled melody but more complex. Sounds cross the aural landscape on top of, underneath, and next to the melody until about the tracks mid-point when all hell breaks loose. Joe Meek and Phil Spector might have bee able to manage a sheer wall of uber-echo this deep in the percussion and keyboards and have the vocals come right out of the middle, floating above and around the mix. So this tension and sharp, edgy contrast is felt now more than ever before on ACs records, but its a great thing. It doesnt feel or sound personal, and it doesnt sound as if anybody is interested in closing the gap. Which is wonderful, because what literally bleeds out of the speakers is the most primal yet most sophisticated record AC have done to date. Children could sing these melodies -- and thats the point -- but it took cleverness, a collective sense of humor, and faith in one another to put Strawberry Jam into such a seamless, delicious whole. | ||
 | Album: 9 of 24 Title: Water Curses Released: 2008-05-05 Tracks: 4 Duration: 18:06 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Water Curses (03:25) 2 Street Flash (06:48) 3 Cobwebs (04:14) 4 Seal Eyeing (03:38) |
 | Album: 10 of 24 Title: Merriweather Post Pavilion Released: 2009-01-09 Tracks: 11 Duration: 54:45 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 In the Flowers (05:22) 2 My Girls (05:41) 3 Also Frightened (05:14) 4 Summertime Clothes (04:30) 5 Daily Routine (05:46) 6 Bluish (05:14) 7 Guys Eyes (04:31) 8 Taste (03:53) 9 Lion in a Coma (04:12) 10 No More Runnin (04:23) 11 Brother Sport (05:59) |
| Merriweather Post Pavilion : Allmusic album Review : Animal Collective have brought the celestial down to earth with each record, but theyve never sounded simultaneously otherworldly and approachable quite like they do on Merriweather Post Pavilion. Their eighth studio LP, it finds them at their best -- straining farther away from conventional song structure and accompaniment, even while doubling back to reach lyrical themes and modes of singing at their most basic or child-like. Where before AC expertly inserted experimental snippets into relatively straight-ahead songs, Merriweather Post Pavilion sees them reach some kind of denouement where pop music ends and pure sonic experience begins -- the sound is the only structure. Dismantling the framework of a pop song almost entirely (but using recurring passages in a very poppy way), the group offer a series of overlapping circular elements, all of which occasionally come together for a chorus but then break apart just as quickly. The music itself, at least whats describable about it, consists of deep bass pulses and art-damaged guitars with overlapping vocal harmonies that rise in a holy chorus. This may sound much like previous Animal Collective highlights, but where those records seemed like a series of accidental masterpieces -- the type of work that sounds brilliant only because its been culled from hundreds of hours of tape -- Merriweather Post Pavilion is a perfectly organized record, not a note out of place, not a second wasted. It has the excitement and energy of Sung Tongs, the ragged sonic glory of Feels, and Strawberry Jams ability to make separate parts come together in a glorious whole. Like the best experimental rockers surging toward nirvana -- from the Beach Boys to Mercury Rev -- Animal Collective have not only created a private soundworld like none other, theyve also made it an inviting place to visit. | ||
 | Album: 11 of 24 Title: Animal Crack Box Released: 2009-05-11 Tracks: 20 Duration: 1:35:12 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Jimmy Raven (07:21) 2 Ahhh Good Country (05:08) 3 Iko Ovo (05:25) 4 Pumpkin Gets a Snakebite (04:11) 5 Pumpkins Hallucination (03:50) 6 Pumpkins Funeral (04:19) 1 Jungle Heart (03:27) 2 Hey Friend (03:30) 3 De Soto De Son (08:41) 4 Oh Sweet (07:25) 5 Young Prayer #2 (02:58) 6 Do the Nurse (05:37) 1 Ice Cream Factory (06:22) 2 Hey Light (02:35) 3 Two Sails (06:37) 4 Dont Believe the Pilot (03:42) 5 Who Could Win a Rabbit (03:07) 6 Mouth Wooed Her (04:22) 7 Covered in Frogs (03:28) 8 We Tigers (03:07) |
 | Album: 12 of 24 Title: Fall Be Kind Released: 2009-11-23 Tracks: 5 Duration: 27:22 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Graze (05:22) 2 What Would I Want? Sky (06:45) 3 Bleed (03:28) 4 On a Highway (04:36) 5 I Think I Can (07:09) |
 | Album: 13 of 24 Title: Merriweather Post Pavilion / Strawberry Jam Released: 2010-12-13 Tracks: 20 Duration: 1:38:19 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 In the Flowers (05:22) 2 My Girls (05:41) 3 Also Frightened (05:14) 4 Summertime Clothes (04:30) 5 Daily Routine (05:46) 6 Bluish (05:14) 7 Guys Eyes (04:31) 8 Taste (03:53) 9 Lion in a Coma (04:12) 10 No More Runnin (04:23) 11 Brother Sport (05:59) 1 Peacebone (05:13) 2 Unsolved Mysteries (04:25) 3 Chores (04:30) 4 For Reverend Green (06:34) 5 Fireworks (06:50) 6 #1 (04:32) 7 Winter Wonder Land (02:44) 8 Cuckoo Cuckoo (05:42) 9 Derek (03:01) |
 | Album: 14 of 24 Title: Centipede Hz Released: 2012-08-29 Tracks: 11 Duration: 53:32 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Moonjock (05:05) 2 Today’s Supernatural (04:14) 3 Rosie Oh (02:55) 4 Applesauce (05:34) 5 Wide Eyed (05:00) 6 Father Time (04:34) 7 New Town Burnout (06:01) 8 Monkey Riches (06:45) 9 Mercury Man (04:18) 10 Pulleys (03:30) 11 Amanita (05:36) |
| Centipede Hz : Allmusic album Review : With 2009s Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective delivered on the seemingly unattainable level of promise that had grown with each release since their beginnings. Ever-shifting, the woolly freak folk of 2003s Sung Tongs gave way to subsequent albums Feels and Strawberry Jam, which were influenced in equal parts by minimal techno and Syd Barrett-esque psychedelic rock. Big beats, pop hooks, heightened production, and Animal Collectives patented freakiness combined into a perfect storm with MPP, and countless new fans were exposed to the band for the first time. Expectations for a similarly brilliant follow-up were bound to be huge, but the bands mercurial approach would never allow for any album to sound too much like the last. Ninth studio album Centipede Hz finds AC returning to a face-to-face writing style, rather than collaborating through file exchanging due to distance. Also returning to the fold is longtime contributor Josh Dibb (aka Deakin), who sat out the last album entirely. Deakins presence is noticeable on the far busier new songs, and he even contributes his first lead vocal ever for the band on the swirling bounce of "Wide Eyed." Noah Lennox has expanded the stripped-down percussion of earlier releases into a makeshift drum kit (complete with the kick drum that was often absent in the past), and live keyboards replace the MIDI-sequenced arpeggios that decorated the last album. All of these elements add to a maximized sound that Centipede Hz sometimes drowns under. The digital rush of "Monkey Riches" is so heavy with ornamental sounds that they suffocate the song, while the trudging pulse of album-closer "Amanita" piles processed guitar lines and nervous rhythmic samples on top of an already weary skeleton, obscuring the songs strengths. Still, manicured pop moments abound, kicking off with the road trip nostalgia of the incredibly catchy "Moon Jock," and one-two punching into the more aggressive, distorted, melodic scatter of "Todays Supernatural." The roomy acoustic percussion of "Father Time" collides with booming electronic drums and Avey Tares nasally, geeky vocals in a series of carefree hooks. Centipede Hz is an album of numerous skittering layers, replacing the ambient pop elements of previous albums with slight Brazilian touches, fuzzy electronic bashing, and even more unrecognizable gurgling samples than usual. Despite the return of MPP producer Ben Allen, theres nothing as direct or bounding as "My Girls" or even as trippily infectious as "Summertime Clothes." In the context of their greater body of work, Centipede Hz is yet another strange and oozing collection of experiments, most of which succeed. Theres a higher percentage of anxiety and queasiness mixed in amid the moments of pop bliss, and though fans of the glassy perfection of MPP may be initially disappointed, Centipede Hz sounds like another logical step in the bands evolution. | ||
 | Album: 15 of 24 Title: Monkey Been to Burn Town Released: 2013-05-27 Tracks: 4 Duration: 23:45 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Monkey Riches (Brian DeGraw (Gang Gang Dance) remix) (06:55) 2 Monkey Riches (Tha Traxman Teklife remix) (04:40) 3 New Town Burnout (Shabazz Palaces remix) (07:56) 4 Monkey Riches (Teengirl Fantasy remix) (04:14) |
 | Album: 16 of 24 Title: Spotify Sessions Released: 2014-02-07 Tracks: 4 Duration: 36:07 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Moonjock (07:33) 2 Peacebone (05:52) 3 Brother Sport (10:40) 4 Purple Bottle (12:02) |
 | Album: 17 of 24 Title: Live at 9:30 Released: 2015-09-04 Tracks: 13 Duration: 1:55:53 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Amanita (Live) (09:53) 2 Did You See the Words (Live) (07:11) 3 Honeycomb (Live) (04:26) 4 My Girls (Live) (07:14) 5 Moonjock (Live) (06:10) 1 New Town Burnout (Live) (11:07) 2 I Think I Can (Live) (08:12) 3 Pulleys (Live) (15:10) 4 What Would I Want? Sky (Live) (08:09) 1 Peacebone (Live) (08:53) 2 Monkey Riches (Live) (08:22) 3 Brothersport (Live) (11:00) 4 The Purple Bottle (Live) (10:06) |
 | Album: 18 of 24 Title: Painting With Released: 2016-02-19 Tracks: 12 Duration: 41:08 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 FloriDada (04:05) 2 Hocus Pocus (03:16) 3 Vertical (04:14) 4 Lying in the Grass (03:34) 5 The Burglars (02:43) 6 Natural Selection (02:41) 7 Bagels in Kiev (02:48) 8 On Delay (03:48) 9 Spilling Guts (01:58) 10 Summing the Wretch (03:08) 11 Golden Gal (04:41) 12 Recycling (04:06) |
| Painting With : Allmusic album Review : Wielding the lineup of Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), and Geologist (Brian Weitz) -- the same as on their most popular LP to date, 2009s Merriweather Post Pavilion -- beloved indie experimenters Animal Collective show no signs of dulling with age on their tenth long-player, Painting With. The album does, however, mark a change in approach. Bursting with creatively wacky pop tunes using a vibrant, at times 50s sci-fi-evoking electronics palette, Animal Collective could have more accurately called this their Devo album instead of "our Ramones record" as Geologist did in a pre-release Rolling Stone interview. The point is taken, though: forms are tightened, artificial reverb shed, experimental excursions not eliminated but greatly limited, and a premium is placed on lively beats and pleasing harmonies. Fans shouldnt worry that theyve produced a collection of aerodynamic jingles, however; the songs still sound artful and uniquely Animal Collective. For instance, rhythmically complex tandem vocals skip and trip through the album, as on the exacting "Lying in the Grass" and "Hocus Pocus" (which also features John Cale on viola). Lyrics are repeated syllable by syllable until the two singers join for moments of harmony, keeping the melodies bouncing like a Max Fleischer cartoon. "Summing the Wretch" is a polyrhythmic ditty that uses these shadow vocals and a brisk tempo to challenge any attempted singalongs (imagine a stimulant-addled "Carol of the Bells"). Elsewhere, "On Delay" is the glitchiest song on the record but governed by fat, driving drum tones and a loose structure that glides along intermittent, railroad switch-like chord progressions, though at roller coaster pace. If that doesnt sound fun enough, samples of the Surfaris "Wipeout" ("FloriDada") and dialogue from TVs The Golden Girls ("Golden Gal") also grace the album. Painting With was recorded in Studio 3 of EastWest Studios in Hollywood, California, the same space where many legendary albums including the Beach Boys Pet Sounds were recorded. Undeniably great sounding, the record puts Animal Collectives brightest colors forward and, if history is any indication, is no predictor whatsoever of what they may do next. | ||
 | Album: 19 of 24 Title: Live at Fonda Theatre March 9, 2016 Released: 2016-05-09 Tracks: 14 Duration: 1:27:01 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Natural Selection (09:07) 2 Lying in the Grass (05:34) 3 Gnip Gnop (06:07) 4 Bagels in Kiev (04:43) 5 Golden Gal (05:07) 6 Spilling Guts (04:55) 7 Summing the Wretch (06:26) 8 Daily Routine (06:29) 9 Alvin Row (07:34) 10 Loch Raven (07:39) 11 The Burglars (05:04) 12 Bees (08:19) 13 On Delay (04:57) 14 Floridada (04:55) |
 | Album: 20 of 24 Title: Live at the Ritz April 13, 2016 Released: 2016-05-09 Tracks: 14 Duration: 1:37:04 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Hounds of Bairro (08:19) 2 Vertical (07:10) 3 Lying in the Grass (06:00) 4 Gnip Gnop (05:39) 5 Golden Gal (05:39) 6 Recycling (06:43) 7 Daily Routine (07:22) 8 Summing The Wretch (07:40) 9 Natural Selection (08:05) 10 Alvin Row (07:22) 11 FloriDada (05:26) 12 Bees (07:07) 13 Loch Raven (11:13) 14 The Burglars (03:12) |
 | Album: 21 of 24 Title: The Painters Released: 2017-02-17 Tracks: 4 Duration: 13:23 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Kinda Bonkers (03:14) 2 Peacemaker (03:15) 3 Goalkeeper (02:47) 4 Jimmy Mack (04:07) |
 | Album: 22 of 24 Title: Meeting of the Waters Released: 2017-04-22 Tracks: 4 Duration: 32:08 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Blue Noses (13:20) 2 Man of Oil (05:25) 3 Amazonawana / Anaconda Opportunity (05:07) 4 Selection of a Place (Rio Negro version) (08:16) |
 | Album: 23 of 24 Title: Live at College Street Music Hall May 26, 2017 Released: 2017-12-21 Tracks: 14 Duration: 1:37:42 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Peacemaker (09:15) 2 Lying in the Grass (06:33) 3 Hounds of Bairro (06:53) 4 Water Curses (08:11) 5 Floridada (04:28) 6 Kids on Holiday (10:31) 7 On Delay (05:31) 8 Sweet Road (04:51) 9 Bees (04:50) 10 Guys Eyes (09:51) 11 Summertime Clothes (08:05) 12 Kinda Bonkers (06:02) 13 Summing the Wretch (06:23) 14 Taste (06:12) |
 | Album: 24 of 24 Title: Tangerine Reef Released: 2018-08-17 Tracks: 13 Duration: 52:45 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Hair Cutter (04:01) 2 Buffalo Tomato (04:49) 3 Inspector Gadget (04:19) 4 Buxom (04:40) 5 Coral Understanding (03:44) 6 Airpipe (to a New Transition) (06:03) 7 Jake and Me (04:25) 8 Coral by Numbers (02:26) 9 Hip Sponge (03:53) 10 Coral Realization (03:00) 11 Lundsten Coral (03:05) 12 Palythoa (04:11) 13 Best of Times (Worst of All) (04:09) |
| Tangerine Reef : Allmusic album Review : When Animal Collective began as a crew of closely knit teenage friends in the mid-90s, one of the primary influences on their early style was the eerie and disorienting tension of horror movie soundtracks. This early influence would go on to touch parts of every album as the band developed, and given their love of film and soundtracks from early on, its no surprise that the group eventually branched out into visual albums -- interconnected film/audio material that shares themes, movements, and subject matter. Following their 2011 visual album, ODDSAC, 2018s Tangerine Reef finds Animal Collective collaborating with Coral Morphologic, a Miami-based group that merges marine biology with conceptual art. The result is a lengthy and drifting meditation on environmental issues, with undercurrents of oceanic conservation and climate change anxiety being suggested but never overtly communicated. Sonically, Tangerine Reef is underwater-sounding even by Animal Collectives washed-out standards. Taken separately from their visual counterparts, the 13 pieces here wander nonstop through a mostly beatless and dreamy ambience. The bands modular lineup means members occasionally sit sessions out, and the pop-minded Panda Bear is palpably absent, his signature vocal harmonies and soaring melodies missing from this subdued set. Vocals (handled solely by Avey Tare) are largely obscured for most of the album, and lyrics are hard to make out when they do rise up enough in the mix to be discerned. Tangerine Reefs singular aquatic flow seems to be more concerned with exploring the textures and subtleties of these slow sounds than fleshing out traditional songs of any kind. Much like the earliest Animal Collective releases, the lines between structured composition and improvisation are blurry, with samples lingering longer than expected, lyrics mumbled or trailing off, and the group coming together in a lush haziness. Designed to soundtrack footage of underwater exploration, the music here is abstract and slightly sad, with pieces like "Palythoa" and "Hair Cutter" coming closest to known songs but still shifting and mercurial. Fans of the bands more accessible material might be puzzled or put off by Tangerine Reef, but those partial to the formless drift of something like 2003s Campfire Songs will find threads of the same magic here. Like any visual album, the floating sounds here are probably best experienced in conjunction with the visuals they were created for, but even on their own, theres a calm power that grows as the various passages of Tangerine Reef fade in and out of one another. | ||