Animal Collective
Domino Records
(2009)
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A blast of interplanetery sounds resonate within the first half-minute of Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, an explosion of ambient noises, distant echoes and handclaps shower down in soothing pace until the drum and bass erupt into an aural supernova, as a distant keyboard slows the song to a close and the ecstasy turns to rising light, with the closest approximation of what a quasar would sound like transitioning into “My Girls,” the first single, with its laser synths and Panda Bear vocals serenading the oncoming bass, a galactic marching band pronouncing its refutation of material things and social status, that great refusal of the American Dream. The splashing of water, an aborigine-like beat, the radiation of noise and voices, a wall of sound penetrating the ears with a melody like I’m dreaming and an assault of looping tracks spinning and churning into a shoegaze of guitar recalling the memories of a childhood love, of walkin’ around in our summerclothes and breathing the dawn in its morning blues with purple yawns.

Jump years ahead and now the electric organ and voices sing of a stroller to my back and a song to pass the playground, a song about children, about that sudden acquisition of burden and responsibility, about life that becomes a “Daily Routine,” and suddenly a respite from adulthood with a “Bluish” Beach Boys harmony of getting lost in your curls—that catharsis of sound and fury Brian Wilson wishes he’d achieved. Then the build-up of drums; a hard-hitting cocktail of male passion, of what my body really needs to do; that drunken, irrational impulse of desire. And then a sudden realization of “Taste,” asking Am I really all the things that are outside of me? Then a mouth harp vibrates with rising intensity to wake that “Lion in a Coma,” and the sound of frogs croaking, drums resembling thick bubbling water, and vibraphone bursting open that final nod to house music, except Geologist, Avey Tare, and Panda Bear inject it with bursting, expansive sirens and robotic synths to urge me, urge you to let it come right out.

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For more on the band, visit:  http://www.myanimalhome.net/

via Abe Ahn, 10 February 2009 10:00am | 1 |