Hi, long time no talk. It's been a while and for that I am more than sorry. I spent the summer well -- working, turning 21 and smoking admittedly more than I should have.
This has also been a great summer for my music discovery journey. What better way to talk about my summer than through the eyes of Animal Collective, arguably one of the most important bands in my life at the moment.
Animal Collective is hard to pin down on a musical genre front. I feel like their music is transcendent beyond the menial categories we assign to music nowadays. But, if I had to pick, I suppose I would say experimental pop.
The group is made up of four childhood friends, who all shared an intense passion for eclectic musical genres growing up. They all have their own stage names, Avey Tare (Dave Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Geologist (Brian Weitz) and Deakin (Josh Dibb). Now, the group is in their 40s and are still creating groovy, strange music together around the world.
They all also make solo music under their stage names, but I think that has to be a different post entry because I won't be able to stop talking if I get into it now!
Oh yeah, you should also note that the band's lineup changes with every new album, depending on who's available to contribute.
I first found out about the band through their most coveted album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, which also contains their biggest song, My Girls. It was a still, summer day when I decided to sit down and listen to the album in full, and once I did, I was never able to go back.
This album is fantastic. I don't know how much more I can say about it except for that after listening for the first time, it was immediately moved up to my top albums of all time. This album also only features three out of four members: Avey Tare, Panda Bear and Geologist.
Songs like Also Frightened have a unique time measure that kept me on my toes the first time I listened to it. Another song that resembles this time style is Lion in a Coma, one of my favorite songs on the record. It feels so carefree and joyous, almost what it feels like to be high with your friends for the first time.
Summertime Clothes easily takes the cake for one of the best songs on the album. Night walks, sweating through your clothes, hair sticking to your neck -- these all remind me of summertime feelings that maybe aren't usually thought of when we romanticize the season. However, even though these unpleasant feelings are brought to us in this song, it almost makes me want to experience those things so I can feel the way they felt when they wrote this song.
Brother Sport is the last song on the album, and I seriously don't know if there could've been a better way to end this record than with this song. It's high in energy, almost to the point where you feel like you're entranced when listening because of how much sound is being funneled into your ears all at once.
It felt like my entire mind was consumed by this band. Nothing could quench the thirst my ears had for their music. Even though this feeling began in July, I seriously have not stopped listening to them since and it's the beginning of September. If I'm listening to music right now, I'm listening to Animal Collective.
Their discography is vast, and every single project feels like something completely different. I am certain there is an Animal Collective song for any exceptional situation you are going to be put in when listening to the music.
After listening to MPP, I felt like I would be doing the band a disservice if I didn't listen to their other projects. I immediately dove in to Strawberry Jam, one of their most critically acclaimed projects, and I could see why.
The sound is drastically different, but still has the charm the band is able to effortlessly carry with them at all times. It's abrasive at times, yet it is incredibly gentle and forgiving. There are epic build ups in the album that have incredibly rewarding payoffs, like those of Fireworks and For Reverend Green.
After, I moved onto their record, Feels, which is also renowned in the listening community for being one of their very prestigious projects.
This record feels like a happy medium in between their maximalist, synth-based sound that is prevalent in MPP, but also strips some acoustic sounds from their earlier work such as Sung Tongs. This record has a few songs that I really cling to: Grass, The Purple Bottle and Banshee Beat.
Yes, this entire album is remarkable, but these three songs are so special to me that I feel like I have no choice but to talk about them.
These three songs explain the core of Animal Collective to me. Very free-spirited yet technical, very lyrical yet vocally harsh at times. They are a band that never forgets to utilize one of the most psychedelic instruments of all, our voices.
Something that sticks out to me more than anything in their music is how often they experiment with their vocal melodies. Avey Tare and Panda Bear's vocals mesh miraculously well, to the point where they will layer their voices over each other and I won't even notice until the second time I listen to the song.
Right now in this moment, my favorite song by them is Leaf House, a song of the record Sung Tongs.
Well, that's all I have to offer right now, and I hope this might convince you to give them a try the next time you want to experience something larger than life! Maybe an exaggeration, but it really is that serious for me. Until next time, cheers!