Monday, February 2, 2009

Animal Collective

My friend Jon records really interesting Cd's for me. I don't like all of them, for example I had to get used to "Sung Tongs" from Animal Collective. It was too psychotic for me, really weird urban mushroom folk music, although I was attracted to it in some strange sense. Last year he gave me the solo album "Person Pitch" by AC band member Panda Bear. I absolutely love it, Brian Wilson-like hypnotic drony golden pop music with beautiful loops and a fair deal of healthy weirdness. I like the rawness of the album, the material is not 100% developed but that has its charm. This made me ready for "Merriweather Post Pavilion" the new AC album which I bought on Itunes last week. The songs are much more developed and worked out compared with Panda Bear's album. It has a distinctive sixties feel although the music is also contemporary, a bit like Beatles and Brian Wilson with samplers instead of guitars. The songs are melancholic but make me happy too, darkness with a golden shiny line, it is still weird but accessible.

I had a similair experience with Stereolab, another band that Jon introduced me too. I was very irritated with the repetitiveness but at a certain moment it hit me and I started loving it. Funny how some music is great from the beginning and other stuff has to grow on you.

Animal Collective

2 comments:

Jim Klus-Salisbury said...

It took Panda first for me to go back and appreciate Animal Collective - I had heard A.C. first and only liked bits and pieces, but was more open after P.B. I really like the new A.C. - but as you know, I'm a popster, not a snob. So I'm not worried that it's too accessible. Hye would you please post something here about your upcoming detroit show - i want to be able to direct my michigan friends to it. thanks baby - love u!

MikeOD said...

I started with Panda Bear too. Really strange disc with a lot of charm, some parts seemed a little repetitive at first but after some head phone listening became almost soothing and trance like. I then downloaded AC's Here Come Indians, which is still a difficult listen and almost turned me off completely. Then I tried Feels and that is much better. Still a bit psychotic, but definitely a lot of really good harmonies. The new one is definitely my favorite of the 3, but I downloaded a couple more to listen to.