Animal Collective – Fall Be Kind
‘Haha, fuck you, we’re not your pop bitches’ seems to be the attitude to this brilliant and brilliantly odd EP by Animal Collective. After the runaway and surprisingly broad sucess of Merriweather Post Pavillion they seem to have decided to make it damn clear that weird, insanely catchy songs for mandexed* hipsters to dance to is not a pigeonhole they are willing to be stuffed into just yet.
Maybe it’s one of the benefits of hitting the mainstream as a relatively mature band. Grizzly Bear are the same: overnight successes maybe, but they are certainly not wide-eyed ingenues, and they certainly didn’t come out of nowhere. Consequently, the idea of being massive, global hit parade bands for a while probably seems slightly surreal and, a little like the Flaming Lips with Embryonic, they seem to be nursing the desire to reclaim their music from the charts by releasing something really fucking weird, to remind the world at large, and maybe themselves a little, what kind of a band they really are.
What Would I Want? Sky is probably the closest they get to Merriweather, with the rest of the EP more submerged in electronic washes punctuated by the odd, surreal burst of sound which seems to emerge almost from the Middle Ages. The main difference is the lack of that percussive rhythm (I say percussive because a lot of it was electronic, rather than actual percussion, but you get my point). There are times when this actually reminds me of that sort of chillout indie music which was sort of popular around the time the Beta Band emerged in the mid-nineties. Bands like Delakota suddenly pop into my head, although I don’t think I’d want to compare them too directly.
This is actually more consistent than Merriweather Post Pavillion, which I thought tailed off quite badly towards the end, but in solving the lows it seems to have not quite located the highs either. There’s none of the euphoria which they managed to generate with their last record, but then again this isn’t exactly supposeed to be pop music so in a sense I guess that’s kinda the point.
Animal Collective – Bleeding
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*Man spandex – thanks Dylan, that one’s going in the dictionary.
Very nice. You’re right, the interlocking vocal parts do sound a bit like medieval polyphony. Such a lonesome feel. I’m not really a fan of Animal Collective, but I like this tune.
i’ll buy this….MPP is an awesome album….but the big but for me is that these guys are utter shite live….seen them twice this year….and have been totally let down both times!
Tom’s back!!!
I dunno, I saw AC live last summer and thought they were pretty good. Didn’t really pay much attention to the stage act though, so I might have missed something.
I’m a bit bored by this EP. I wasn’t that big on MPP, but I don’t think I ever gave it a proper listen. I loved Feels though (Grass is probably one of my favorite songs), and this EP is definitely a lot closer to the sound on that album, just a bit duller I think.
What’s his avatar now? Is that, like, a portion pot of chutney or something?
I liked it when he had Mary Whitehouse for an avatar and his screen name linked to a drag queen agency.
Out of interest Matthew, which tracks do you think let MPP down? I admit that “Guys Eyes” and “Taste” veer dangerously close to filler but I reckon the album finishes quite strongly.
Anyway, glad to hear you’ve warmed to the album as the year’s progressed. I didn’t think too much of it at first either, but have probably listened to it more than anything else this year.
Guys Eyes, Taste, Lion in a Coma, No More Runnin… none of these really tickle my fancy. But the last one is brilliant.
I was curious to read this post, because the (ahem) “epic beauty” of “What Would I Want? Sky” actually sent me back to re-assess MPP, about which I was previously just ambivalent, over the past couple weeks. I appreciate that album a lot more now that I’ve spent some time (which I hadn’t done on first pass).
re Mandex: some muppet from the NME was on Roudtable the other day, coining the phrase “Mandie” i.e. a slightly more mature style of indie music that is still acceptable to men who have outgrown the NME. Um, so Man + Indie….
Mandie examples being… Elbow, Doves, etc.
I do not understand AC at all. I really like Panda Bear though, and Atlas Sound, Inc. and they are vaguely similar-ish.
Tom!!! Welcome back, sweetness. Now do tell what that avatar is?
And yeah, I’ve never quite got the attraction of AC. I like them for about ten mins. Then I grow bored and start daydreaming about Tom.
xox
Waits, You better mean.
Dev, mandex is a way, way better term than that. I think they are referring to Dadrock.
i have no power over my avatar….i leave it down to whatever Toad feels like putting there
i dream about Tart all the time