ANIMAL COLLECTIVE

sung tongs

CD/LP, Fat Cat

I am always careful with that word, but here it is the first that comes to mind: unique. And of course weird. Animal Collective are bound to become big, at least as big as REM or Sonic Youth, if the world was a fair place. Like a David Lynch movie but friendly and emotionally welcoming instead of the frightening enigmas and unclearable mysteries, though no less unforeseeable. “Sung Tongs” seems a little more folk-oriented and song-based to me, but that might be not more than a misconception coming from my inability to judge the music of Animal Collective as a whole, because there is just too much of it here, in a single song even. Drugs might help. I already see discussions in enlightened circles in years to come centering around the magic and genius of this bands. But there is still some time left until then.

Two voices sing “meow meow” in unison while a third person whispers “hey, kittie kittie”. Next song deals with winning a rabbit and a third one is called “we tigers”. All of it clouded in an impeccable collage of Sixties pop-art meets avantgarde dadaism and deconstructivism in a time-warp. Yeah, it has to be Animal Collective. I have the feeling that there is a (small) rise of bands now that take their ideas to unexpected lengths and sizes nowadays. Black Dice, Big City Orchestra, Nitrada, Chib or VitaminsForYou are just the first to come to mind, and thinking about the label of Animal Collective there is also Set Fire To Flames, Crescent or the Mice Parade. Insofar, Fat Cat is an idol of a record label, experts in successfully releasing the most inspiring, enriching and progressive music around.

Even expecting the unexpected won’t work properly with Animal Collective, because their subconscious mindmaps are just too far out to be apprehended by average people like me. Just like there are some people who still think that the Flaming Lips are the number one weird pop band who use their Sixties-influences in strange and startling ways, also those people are wrong who think they’ll gain something by taking the clever way out and expect nothing at all .Both groups are wrong all the time and Animal Collective are the reason. Expect to be surprised or to have your expectations misinterpreted and then not truly fulfilled. Expectations are hard stuff to come by for any artist, if he gives a thought to your or my expectations anyway. Some artists say that they produce their art for an audience of one, themselves. I don’t judge, I am too puzzled by what is going on around me. But at the times in which I have trouble understanding the normal everyday life and the people living next to me, are the times in which Animal Collective seem the most accessible and straight forward to me. It’s all wavelengths of cosmic radiation, anyway, says the manatee.

The world inhabited by Panda Bear and Avey Tare, the core members of Animal Collective, is a strange but charmingly beautiful and warm one, with its own rules, harmonies and physics. With one double CD collecting their first two albums of Animal Collective and a contribution to the Fat Cat Split-12”-Series by Avey Tare, the group with the loosest band-structure known to me that still insists on being a band after all, has become a quite well-known name. I hope that will rise and rise and rise. A lot more people need to be puzzled yet wonderfully and warmly encompassed by folksy avantgarde and free form songwriting. If you think that are contradictions in themselves, you haven’t read the first paragraph of this review properly. Together with Black Dice, another band-structure akin to work out epic forms of post-modern songs (in a way) and who also have a new record out soon, they seem to be the most prominent of the bands on Fat Cat at the moment.

We have had weird, the Sixties and the epic character. But Animal Collective are not bound to any of them for any great length or reason. They’ll use digital noises and animal samples, keep songs short and simple and might even include a message, e.g. “you don’t have to go to college.” Mainly, though, it is the surprising structures and contrast of ideas, most of which seem to be connected to harmonies akin to the Beach Boys, instrumental trickery reminiscent of the most experimental phase of the Flower Power-bands, composed weirdness that would have made Frank Zappa proud and an ease and lightness of easy listening from the Sixties as well, harmony singing included. All at the same time, which written down sounds really awful, I realise, but it isn’t. It sounds like a hard piece of work that comes off important and enriching. Yet all of their songs sound so light and easy, as if caught of the air in the fruitgarden with butterflies and birds all around. And Animal collective playing in the middle like a group of lost children, never losing the energy of free improvisation or the contracting power of ordered structures. Sometimes they’ll sing in harmony, at other times scream like crazy chipmunks, all the while strumming endlessly on an old acoustic guitar or adding new harmonies or layers of production to the song. And then adding layer on layer of new ideas, creative re-shapings and effects to distort and re-work the original song to build a completely new and unique experience.

www.fat-cat.co.uk

04/2004