Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009)

There's a live version on the end of the album as purchased from iTunes; I actually far prefer the studio one.

I had a dream last night these guys were recording their new album in my apartment and Avey was like the most disgusting houseguest ever. High all the time, spilling shit all over me, constantly doing that yelping thing he does.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3187/3083240768_f9a88f7bab_b.jpg

exactly.

^ never gets old.

http://www.jefframirez.com/ilx/tuomasclub.jpg

never gets old.

12. Andrew Bird Noble Beast 25, 700
13. Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion 24,700

when did Andrew Bird become so popular?

ask the nyt

Yeah, the Bird placing baffles me a little too. I figured he'd be back in the 40s or 50s somewhere.

These guys wear sixties mysticism really well. They made a personal playlist/"mixtape" for a website not too long ago and so many of the band's selections were late sixties and early seventies album cuts from bands that, for a long time, were stigmatized with the "hippie" label (Mama's and the Papa's, Joni Mitchell covers, Cat Stevens, The Byrds circa Notorious B.B, "Tomorrow Never Knows," etc). Their sound encompasses much more than just that genre of rock but their attitude and aesthetic seems to be very firmly grounded in the sixties, and the mysticism and Eastern spiritualism that was in close proximity (Just look at the band's name).

Also, there's that hippie aesthetic of "This isn't a simple chorus or a hook, we're singing this part of the song like it a religious mantra, or a chant, guys" in a lot of AC music, along with another hippie-rock gimmick: hypnotizing loops and sounds that are meant to induce something in-between a glazed-eye and a spiritual rebirth. It's a mindset that's all over the music they put on the aforementioned online playlist. People often times just associate psychedelia with the surrealism, radicalism and the drug use of the era, almost always neglecting or underemphasizing the neo-Theosophic influence that was overtaking youth culture. The way the Beatles' went into some sort of Eastern chant at the end of "Hello, Goodbye" was probably just as shocking and revolutionary to most Western youths as a lot of the oddball stuff on "I Am The Walrus." With Animal Collective I'm reminded of the "rock music as an Eastern religious experience," style that was stamped on so many sixties records and then went away. When AC is at their best I think that's one of the things that sets them apart from so many other sixties-loving bands - they way they internalize the spiritual aspect of the music they love, and not just the superficial exterior. Now whether these guys are actually "let's go sleep in the fields" mystics themselves is beside the point, the point is just that they've managed to capture that element from their original influences and I can hear it in their music.

I should also point out that before he died in the early '90s Timothy Leary was raving about the potential of "the internet" and how it'd change everything. So...

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

The links are becoming ever more clear.

The thread has worn its welcome out/
Before the record did.

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?