My timing is impeccable. Animal Collective released their traditional post-album EP this week, Fall Be Kind which includes a couple of regular live favourites of mine including What Would I Want? Sky. It also turns out that Uncut and Mojo have just made their ninth studio album Merriweather Post Pavillion their best album of 2009. Deservedly so too. Showing how much foresight and modesty I have - as well as my ability to ignore naysayers who insisted the fuss about the album was merely desperation on the part of music media in the early part of the year when very little of interest is usually released - here's my March issue cover story for Playmusic Pickup with Avey Tare and Geologist. Enjoy.
Natural Selection
From unassuming noise experimentalists to media darlings and commercial success, Animal Collective’s wayward route hasn’t deviated, as Avey Tare and Geologist explain. Is their success enough to spark risk-taking by both the industry and the record buying public or will it just irritate long-term fans?
The best moments in these heady days of slippery corporate grips on music are when a fringe concern becomes a massive deal to both the press and the public. Having delivered nine albums of varied, exciting and challenging material, Animal Collective have a sudden hit on their hands; this years glorious experimental pop record, Merriweather Post Pavillion. Lesson time: Animal Collective is a fluid group that almost resemble the movement of tectonic plates in their group aesthetic. They shift around, immense pressure builds up and it is gloriously released in one awesome spray of technicolour creativity. The plates that mesh together, and how, dictate the results. Though the name Animal Collective explicitly includes Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Avey Tare (David Portner), Deakin (Josh Dibb) and Geologist (Brian Weitz), each album has a different flavour which partly relies on who is involved.
“In terms of how we started, that was how we intended it. We focused on things more as projects. It’s not like we would be this group with a linear direction,” explains Avey/David. It wasn’t until their fifth release, Here Comes The Indian, that all four members were involved and the name Animal Collective was dreamt up, presumably for ease of marketing, as much as anything.
“It doesn’t really matter who’s around, it’s whoever wants to be a part of it. We’ve had to be more organised with what we’re doing and Animal Collective as a band, I guess, has taken more of a precedence. It seemed to become more of a full time band thing but at the same time we’re still open to people coming and going,” admits David, as the three of us, Brian/Geologist being the third, huddle around a Central London alleyway pub table.
In this case, Animal Collective circa 2009 is missing Josh who “after Strawberry Jam really, really needed a break”. The knock-on effect of this free-movement idea, is that Animal Collective rarely go out and ‘play the hits’, as it were. This isn’t out of some snobby progression ethic, but necessity. “It was a little weird because fans at this time expect us to play songs they really know and love, having worked for two years with Feels and Strawberry Jam. They want us to keep going and playing those songs but without Josh we couldn’t really do it. He’s such a crucial part to some of those songs, so still having tours to play, we had to write a bunch of new songs.”
Before we all get a hot and bothered over whether this is the ‘correct’ motive for making music – and what do we know anyway? – David’s addendum clears this up.
“We were inspired to do it anyway, we had it in our heads that we were ready to move on from Strawberry Jam which was an intense time in terms of music.”
Animal Collective’s prolific output has meant almost one album per year since 2000, all fairly unconventional. The first three were attributed to the individual musicians who worked on the songs, 2003s Campfire Songs was actually the bands name as well as the records title, while the music itself has ranged from live improvisations (Hollinndagain) and acoustic tribal-folk duos (Sung Tungs) to the streamlined, hazy-liquid pop found on more recent records, including last year’s Water Curses EP. It’s a baffling, intimidating body of work that would shock the uninitiated currently enjoying the succulence of Merriweather. This time, the loss of Deakin – the group’s most prominent guitar player – has caused another seismic shift, David, thoughtful and laid back, explains:
“You lose one set of instruments and there’s a whole new realm of space to play around with. That previous sound was very thick and wall of sound-y. For me (this time) it’s a lot of the abrasive elements coming out and making a decision to utilise a lot more acoustic and traditional sound sources, like flutes or strings, and do it our own way where it’s manipulated, sampled and played so that it suits our style. The abrasive guitar and electronics are absent and you have this symphonic glaze of sound.”
You can hear why the media and the public have finally sat up and taken notice. Merriweather, with its almost hypnotic, reverbed vocals and churning, natural sound, seems to echo through nature. Swathes of elemental, incandescent noises are melded into something celebratory and soul-warming. Feel-good music wouldn’t be far off, even though there are intense, and even scary, moments – the siren break in Brothersport for instance.
“In terms of the songwriting and the way the songs are produced there’s the emotional melodic from-the-soul kind of element and the emotions we put into it are true and honest. It comes from somewhere within us and we want it to be an honest representation of what we’re doing and the topics of the songs. There’s the other side of it which is a very visual side of music to us which comes from our tastes in music and how we listened to music growing up.”
The balance between crafting a soundscape and writing an emotionally driven song is something that concerns Animal Collective. There’s no denying the overwhelming joy spilling from Merriweather, though whether it carries you with it depends on how you listen: is it with your heart or your head?
“All the music we can agree on has a very human element, whether it’s techno or music concret or folk music. We’re touched, it doesn’t feel just like a fabrication. But we also like music that has this escapism to it and a sonic feeling to it and that seems to be how we build our sound world, and construct each song. We’ve never really studied music. We can’t talk about music in terms of complicated time structures or anything like that. We talk about things like colours or images so it becomes almost escapism. We want the audience to be in this world of sound, you know, to forget about us.”
If success is measured by anything, it should be by the creators of art explaining what they do in a way that absolutely corresponds with the listener. In this case, talking of colours, shapes and imagery in relation to their music makes utter sense to this writer. I couldn’t begin to deconstruct and describe the technical sounds that inhabit Merriweather without removing the heart of the music; a messy operation that would end up with none of us learning anything, and losing so much.
Brian takes this further, explaining that the band went through a period of telling fans what equipment and sounds they used to make their records, but that they found it counter-productive for both parties. “It’s more fun to figure it out on your own. I just tell people to find their own way. When we started getting into weirder music in high school - horror movie soundtracks, music concret records or more experimental sound-collage noise bands – we had no idea how to do it but tried to figure out a way we could make sounds the same and also figure out our own sound.”
As is expected when a band becomes a reasonable success, the uproar and disappointed tutting continues to come from those who expect a certain something from this band they’ve spent the 2000s digesting. What makes this all the more ridiculous with Animal Collective is that each record has been different – drastically so on occasion. Brian and David talk at length about this:
Brian: “I don’t think we worry about it. We’re used to it and we’ve put out a lot of records at this point and if you look at some of them compared to others, they sound like different bands. We had a lot of hardcore fans from the early 2000s with records like Danse Manatee or Here Comes The Indian that saw us play in basements and think of us as this great free noise rock thing and I don’t think they’re so interested in what we do now. Then there are fans who loved the last few records and think: ‘Man, back then they were just completely unlistenable.’ We’re kinda used to having different types of music fans attracted to different records of ours. In a way we think that’s kind of cool. We don’t just put something out for one specific genre. It’s nice to be attractive to people of widely varying tastes.”
Dave: “You have to keep in mind that you get attached to a band at a certain time period in your life and you start to forget they’re these individuals too who have their own individual trajectory and tastes but you want them to do exactly what you want them to do. Then, they do something else and you think that they’re not a good band anymore.
Certain decisions we make aren’t because we want to become mainstream heroes or anything, it’s just sounds we appreciate and stuff we’re honestly interested in”
Brian: “A fan can dislike stuff, but sometimes the accusations of motivations aren’t totally right. You can’t worry about it. You hope people will like it.”
One of my personal pet hates is the need to contrast and compare a bands records, something I’m sure I’ve nevertheless been guilty of in the past. Both Brian and David sprint to agreement when I state that each record should stand by itself. It’s natural to prefer some records to others but to say that one is better than the other is opinion and personal taste. Instead, each record should be appreciated for what it is. If it’s a bad record then that will soon be clear. To try and compare Merriweather to Danse Manatee is futile. What’s nice is Animal Collective’s acceptance and expectation of getting different reactions from whole heaps of different people. Even friends.
“We were in Detroit with the Wolf Eyes guys and they used to like our live shows that were noisier and they used to call it the Four Cavemen sort of shows,” explains Brian. “I was with Dave and Noah on the tour just hanging out and they saw me but they thought I’d be playing. When it came to the set Noah and David walked on with just two acoustic guitars and they came up and said: “What the fuck man?! Why aren’t you up there?” I said: “I’m not playing, they’re doing this now.” They were shocked: “Animal Collective are two guys with acoustic guitars? What the fuck? Aren’t you gonna do the Cavemen screaming thing?’ They were into it, though.”
Their love of what they do is clear – in fact it is part of them. A controversial statement, if you’ll indulge me: music is not strictly entertainment and anything that comes across that way should just be enjoyed for what it is, but will never be worth much of anyone’s time. Music should be something that can be personally relevant to you, even though it was made by others. As for the authors themselves, especially in this case, it’s like an autobiographical study of their lives in sound. Certain records can be painful to listen to, just like looking at old and embarrassing photographs.
Dave: “As creators of the records we get asked what our favourite one is and I think being able to recognise that it comes from such a different time period in our lives and represents something so different means we couldn’t choose.”
Brian: “They’re like: ‘how do you see the progression? How do you evaluate the different steps you’ve made.’ It’s like looking back at my twenties. It’s like asking me about how I feel about a linear progression of how I’ve grown up over the last ten years. You don’t think of it that way. It’s been a reflection of how we’ve grown up as people which isn’t a linear progression for human beings. It’s not a process where you’re striving for perfection, it’s more looking for different experiences in your life.”
Merriweather represents a new high point in their lives, a record more people are relating to than ever before. So, where does it stand in their catalogue of ever-evolving music? Have they moved on already?
Brian: “Not really. We still really like these songs. We have been working on new material but it’s been simultaneously with this record, so it’s not like we’ve put all this to bed. For the next studio record, I’m not sure what we’ll do, where we’ll go or who’ll be on it. We know it’s expected of us but we don’t think it makes any sense for us, or the music, to force it just coz people know Animal Collective work fast. We’ll wait for the inspiration to come. It’s the curse of being proud of being known as a prolific band and it IS something to be proud of. It’s what we do with our time and people recognise we put a lot of work into it.”
As a rumoured visual project begins to take shape, it goes without saying that it is records like Merriweather that kick off a new year in fine style. What comes after from other artists later may be homogenised and commercial, but if this record makes the impact it’s threatening to, the public may well be asking for far more and Animal Collective are quite willing to continue to shock and surprise all of us.
Brad Barrett
Album Discography:
Avey Tare and Panda Bear – Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished
Avey Tare, Geologist, Panda Bear – Danse Manatee
Avey Tare, Geologist, Panda Bear – Holindagain
Campfire Songs – Campfire Songs
Animal Collective – Here Comes The Indian
Animal Collective – Sung Tungs
Animal Collective – Feels
Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion
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“Mavericks”
If you like what you hear, and want to hear more bands that work unconventionally and sound unique, check these incredible groups out:
Liars
They have produced four records since 2002, with 2007’s self titled effort being the first where frontman Angus Andrew says they’ve “tried writing actual songs”. Going from relatively tight funk-punk to fierce, disparate, percussive-driven noise experiments to industrial rock and roll, their work is thrilling and vital.
Sonic Youth
There are fifteen official Sonic Youth studio records (and a whole lot more besides) they started as free noise, tribal drumming freaks, became commericial grunge heroes in the early nineties before descending to new melodic and experimental territory. Sonic Youth never leave their improvisational history behind for long, with their own SYR label releases showing their brave, improvisational and forward thinking approach. Detunings, screwdrivers, drills, drumsticks have all been used to play guitars over their 28 years as rock pioneers.
An Experiment On A Bird In An Air Pump
Mightily young and without a full release yet, these girls certainly have the experimental side sorted. The three of them play in a line: one playing drums, one or two of them singing and one or two of them playing bass. For each song they’ll swap around and this gives each song a different feel ranging from soulful to primitive punk. Plus they cover Sonic Youth’s 100%.
Nelson
These Parisians songs aren’t especially experimental but their refusal to have a frontman leaves every member having to sing, swap instruments and, occasionally, use radio static to layer over their Factory records inspired output.
Micachu and the Shapes
If the music wasn’t unconventional enough – in its leftfield pop realm – Micachu makes her own instruments. The Chu, a resrung acoustic guitar, and a bowed instrument made from a cd rack. Having delivered a grime mix tape and scored for the London Philharmonic Orchestra, she’s perhaps one of the most unique talents in Britain.
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