Animal Collective

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
I've been listening to the new album and quite like it - it is very pleasant to listen to - but it seems a bit tame. Like pet collective, really. Then some friends and I saw them live in Berlin, and it felt a bit flat. Where is the beastliness? The ferociousness? The murderous chaos and violence of nature? The red in tooth and claw part. It seemed to us that there is not enough evil and violence in the animal collective world view.
 
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BareBones

wheezy
no it seems like a reasonable perspective to me, i've listened to the new album a few times now and it sounds extremely tame. I like two or three tunes but I find it gets cheesier with every listen, some of the 'dance' tunes on it are cringeworthy... and quite a bit of it - a lot of the beats for example - sound kinda like dated electronica to me. Ridiculous how much hype it's got.
 

pajbre

Well-known member
used to love them... but you're right on, the danger is gone. can't help but feel saddened that they finally gave in to being an indie rock band, which i had previously felt like they had managed to skirt or problematize in one way or another.
 

sodiumnightlife

Sweet Virginia
NO no no no no no no no! You're absolutely wrong. Saw them last week in glasgow and stood right by the sub, absolutely amazing. The new album is a triumph I think, miles better than their old ones. To think of the tunes as dance tunes is quite wrong I think. Some of the most beautiful melodies. If you want blood listen to slayer.
 
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claphands

Poorly-known member
I remember when they were just one of many indie psychedelic collectives back with "here comes the indian." I thought they were okay then, nothing special. now they have this radiohead coffee table experimentation sound going on that it still okay, nothing special.

my opinion towards them might be some hindsight impatience about all-things indie rock, but I've given them a chance.
 

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
I listened to Here Comes The Indian a long time ago in my car during a long and very dark drive from Orangeville to Oakville in a torrential rain-storm without the aid of any street-lights.

I made it home safe and sound. I'm sorry to say, that CD didn't.
 

Chris

fractured oscillations
this is, like, just my opinion, but...

yeah, I think this album is f'in brilliant. Besides being a landmark of aesthetic innovation though, it, more crucially I think, resonates on all the right spiritual notes...

hmmm, how to clumsily illustrate this... k, here goes. Kick ur feat up, light one up...


where is the beastliness? The ferociousness? The murderous chaos and violence of nature? The red in tooth and claw part. It seemed to us that there is not enough evil and violence in the animal collective world view. Or is this insane?

to jump off from these themes ... maybe these more base attributes just aren't what the times are calling for? maybe having cycled through their primal phases their totem animals have evolved higher minds, capable of, and now being more enlightened... obligated to, CONSIDERING THE TIMES, higher principles?
Up till recently, kids, divorced from a culture or life of any significance or obligation, directionless in a country and age of selfishness, might as well had lost themselves in the meaninglessness. Whether it was Hollywood idolatry or diversionary totems of escape, symbols of authenticity/the cutting edge/truth/escapism. But even for the latter, any theme, any flavor has been fair game, there was nothing at stake but the endless chase of the new. So darkness too, not as commentary or reflection of social truth, but just for the rush of it? Whythefucknot? Nothing is at stake. And for those of us more mystically inclined, lets just cling to the infantile, keep our heads up our asses until the cultural darkness passes. Lose ourselves in the primal. But y'know, the Beasts of the Corporate Jungle were letting their animal sides run wild too. Like with animals, it's just a competition, a race, there is no meaning, just the game.

Let this run it's course a bit, turn the page... and we all know the consequences that such animalistic self interest dealt. Problems we couldn't ignore, that made us have to finally face this moral/social/political problem. Hell, the election itself ultimitely came down to this battle between SELF INTEREST (don't you want to clutch onto your money like our "everyman" buddy JOE THE PLUMBER tm?) or higher-minded RESPONSIBILITY/SERVICE/GENEROSITY... brands that haven't exactly proven to sell very well in the past, particularly on the American market (fuck I detest marketing terms, but...).

So, in the face of today's EVENT, with it's layers of significance, not just culturally, but idealogically, I'm happy to bask, for a moment, before we get cynical again, in this sense of good will, of possibility, of optimism, CHANGE(tm), HOPE(tm) (who knows, maybe this CHANGE spirit might even peak it's head into the music world. LOL PROBABLY NOT).
I'll be happy to hear a bit of roughness, of struggle, in music soon enough, it'll probably suit the times. But for this naive moment, the lightness and transcendentalism of this album hits the right notes, for me. There's nothing that I'd want to hear less right nao than something invoking savagery and law-of-the-jungle self interest. To quote the album "I don't want... to seem like I care about... material things, like my social status. I just want, four walls and adobe slats, for ma girls".

On a very related note, the current cultural sea-change, not so much in it's inspirational aspects, but in the difficulties, already seem to be stirring up completely new impressions on life. A whole new tone. Like things are at stake. Like there are issues that matter. I wonder if this'll affect the way people experience and process music, now that it's not simply a game of distraction...
 

pajbre

Well-known member
"On a very related note, the current cultural sea-change, not so much in it's inspirational aspects, but in the difficulties, already seem to be stirring up completely new impressions on life. A whole new tone. Like things are at stake. Like there are issues that matter. I wonder if this'll affect the way people experience and process music, now that it's not simply a game of distraction... "


agreed that it's nice that there is perhaps a new mindfulness of the stakes at hand, but people have been experiencing music outside of the paradigm you mention for as long as there has been music.
 

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
I think you make a good case, and are right that the record closely reflects the wider cultural climate and the feelings of optimism generated by the Changenator.

But - here is my problem - I think really great art and music needs to recognize the horror that lurks in the soul of man, and I think the greater the recognition = the greater the art. I have produced the following graph:

evilart23.jpg


My problem with animal collective is that I don't think they are really willing to face the dark side. Okay, I guess I could just listen to Slayer. But I don't just want blood. I want blood, with vitamins.
 

Chris

fractured oscillations
Josef, I suspect you and I may subscribe to veerrrry different cosmologies (or are at the very least prefer different imagery), but whatevs, it's all good. Have some more graph silliness. ;)

meatloaf.jpg
 
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Chris

fractured oscillations
agreed that it's nice that there is perhaps a new mindfulness of the stakes at hand, but people have been experiencing music outside of the paradigm you mention for as long as there has been music.

Yeah, as far as that last point, I was speculating more along the lines of a yet undefinable shift in feeling across all styles, cultures, demographics. Like the cultural climate that shaped the Motown vibe (not that I'm by any means crossing my fingers for Motown 2: Electric Boogaloo).

I've had a lot of respect for the styles that have been hanging in there this decade, despite that lack of a sense of time moving forward with significance. I've never talked about Dubstep here much, mostly 'cause a lot of people here experience it's development firsthand, so I'd much rather hear their takes, but I've admired and quitely enjoyed anything carrying on in an interesting way. ...That said I can't help sometimes getting the mental image, with regards to a lot of genres; of these small encampments of true believers huddled around small fires through a long night.

I guess I'm just wondering that if perhaps through a larger sense of purpose via a collective narrative of hardship (oops, that sounds like something recalling religious morality or Victorian sentimentalism OH NOES INTELLECTUALLY FORBIDDEN), alot of the separated strands of our culture might start to weave and intermingle together into a larger, shared reality tunnel, perhaps a more charged environment for bigger musical narratives.
 
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dominic

Beast of Burden
even though i live in wburg, i tend to go out to manhattan spots, ave c and french bistros, though from time to time i hit places like trophy bar----->so i do not really have my thumb on brooklyn dance-rock scene as such

however, there does seem to be a new crop of "positivity" bands, which to my ears are the long-awaited u.s. response to early 90s uk bands (yes, i know, i constantly reveal my age, or at least my inability to surmount my early 90s formative years in terms of aesthetic orientation) ----> i.e., this is what ought to be called "nu rave," not the klaxons and other such bollocks that was being hyped a year or so ago----------->the new animal collective, the new gang gang dance, high places------>stuff that i think nestles nicely aside a lot the neo-balearic sounds out of the UK such as studio and quiet village, but which feels more forward-looking

i have only seen one or two shows by likes of gang gang dance and animal collective, and that was a couple of years back----->and though the performances were intense and intriguing, i tend to be a singles kinda guy, an instant-impact, "pop" kinda guy (albeit within the larger field of "alternative"), so i struggled to suppress yawns when listening to, say, here comes the indian

so i find myself EAGERLY EMBRACING what i suppose long-time fans of gang gang dance and animal collective might disdain as a cheapening or mainstreaming of their sounds

in short, i think the new material by both bands is fabulous, if arguably cheesy in parts
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
contemporary with the new "positivity" bands, however, is a new crop of "dark" and rather "trad" psych rock bands------>the Black Angels out of Austin, Texas, and A Place to Bury Strangers out of New York, a movement arguably initiated a few years by the much-maligned Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, though the Black Angels in particular seem to have much more chops

i find myself enjoying both sides of the current rock equation, and i suspect that in both instances my enjoyment is rooted in nostalgia, whether for jamc and mazzy star and loop in the case of the "dark" bands, or for the likes of mbv and lush on the "positive" side . . . .

but really, the new animal collective feels to me like it is of this moment now. and i expect it will have massive popular appeal . . . .
 

sodiumnightlife

Sweet Virginia
In terms of my personal paradigm, songs with interesting textures and/or interesting structures subsumed for the purposes of pop are my favourite kind. I think the ac record does both perfectly.

I was only joking about you being "wrong," whoever it was. Music's opinions etc etc.
 

Lichen

Well-known member
Sodium: with you on that sub! Saw them in London a week or two ago and there were some lovely wibbly, wobbly bits.
 

BareBones

wheezy
yeah, I think this album is f'in brilliant. Besides being a landmark of aesthetic innovation though, it, more crucially I think, resonates on all the right spiritual notes...

hmmm, how to clumsily illustrate this... k, here goes. Kick ur feat up, light one up...




to jump off from these themes ... maybe these more base attributes just aren't what the times are calling for? maybe having cycled through their primal phases their totem animals have evolved higher minds, capable of, and now being more enlightened... obligated to, CONSIDERING THE TIMES, higher principles?
Up till recently, kids, divorced from a culture or life of any significance or obligation, directionless in a country and age of selfishness, might as well had lost themselves in the meaninglessness. Whether it was Hollywood idolatry or diversionary totems of escape, symbols of authenticity/the cutting edge/truth/escapism. But even for the latter, any theme, any flavor has been fair game, there was nothing at stake but the endless chase of the new. So darkness too, not as commentary or reflection of social truth, but just for the rush of it? Whythefucknot? Nothing is at stake. And for those of us more mystically inclined, lets just cling to the infantile, keep our heads up our asses until the cultural darkness passes. Lose ourselves in the primal. But y'know, the Beasts of the Corporate Jungle were letting their animal sides run wild too. Like with animals, it's just a competition, a race, there is no meaning, just the game.

Let this run it's course a bit, turn the page... and we all know the consequences that such animalistic self interest dealt. Problems we couldn't ignore, that made us have to finally face this moral/social/political problem. Hell, the election itself ultimitely came down to this battle between SELF INTEREST (don't you want to clutch onto your money like our "everyman" buddy JOE THE PLUMBER tm?) or higher-minded RESPONSIBILITY/SERVICE/GENEROSITY... brands that haven't exactly proven to sell very well in the past, particularly on the American market (fuck I detest marketing terms, but...).

So, in the face of today's EVENT, with it's layers of significance, not just culturally, but idealogically, I'm happy to bask, for a moment, before we get cynical again, in this sense of good will, of possibility, of optimism, CHANGE(tm), HOPE(tm) (who knows, maybe this CHANGE spirit might even peak it's head into the music world. LOL PROBABLY NOT).
I'll be happy to hear a bit of roughness, of struggle, in music soon enough, it'll probably suit the times. But for this naive moment, the lightness and transcendentalism of this album hits the right notes, for me. There's nothing that I'd want to hear less right nao than something invoking savagery and law-of-the-jungle self interest. To quote the album "I don't want... to seem like I care about... material things, like my social status. I just want, four walls and adobe slats, for ma girls".

On a very related note, the current cultural sea-change, not so much in it's inspirational aspects, but in the difficulties, already seem to be stirring up completely new impressions on life. A whole new tone. Like things are at stake. Like there are issues that matter. I wonder if this'll affect the way people experience and process music, now that it's not simply a game of distraction...

fair enough. to me, though, it's cringeworthy, and not in the slightest bit transcendental. Maybe 'trance-endental' (arf!). There's plenty of other music around which is hopeful and optimistic anyway - the previous, superior animal collective albums for instance.

i do really like 'daily routine', but isn't that an old panda bear track? I'm pretty certain he played it when i saw him live once.
 

straight

wings cru
+1

dominic: fwiw, having been something of a fan of both AC and GGD, I like both their recent albums best.

animal collective started going down the pan with sung tongs, its a shame as they used to be one of my favourite bands and a lot of the early records are fantastic. It seems that there is this huge difference between the old records and the new, as if they have and been seduced by bloggy indie global dance experimentalism from their DIY noise roots. They are some really shocking moments on the pre sung tongs records and since them they merely seem to be ticking all the boxes to appeal to noise/indie/wire types. Plus avey's voice has got more and more grating since they stopped distorting it. GGD and black dice (now singing actual songs) seem to have undergone the same fate. All we need now is wolf eyes to go funky and the 2004 me will snuff himself out.
 
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