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

Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal

When I heard Alejandro's new album was going to be made up of songs inspired by his musical career and personal life I winced. "No, not Alejandro," I thought! usually reminiscing should be left to one's friends and families - or at least save it for the memoirs. When any rocker looks backwards it's usually like masturbation - fun for the doer only. Often these types of records feature lyrics stretched or squeezed to fit into awkward musical spaces and the music itself sounds soundtracky or contrived. "Real Animal" certainly falls into none of these traps. Each song is rich, melodic and the music stands alone - no back drops for lyrics or stories here. The lyrics, too, are not a bore. I think the reason is instead of just recounting his "crazy days" or regrets, or whatever, he ties his stories to bigger (or smaller) themes we can all relate to. A perfect example is the song "Chelsea Hotel '78"- I cringed when I saw this potentially pretentious title. But early in the song the lyric "..we came to live inside the myths of everything we heard" let's us know this isn't going to be an idealized 'gee, don't you wish you where there' hipster brag trip. The song goes on to name drop left and right, but it still works and connects to every situation we've all had in our lives where expectations fade and reality takes us in a different direction - and in the end it's just as it should have been. All the songs feature excellent story telling, but this album is all about the music - at once clean and deep and each songs builds in a specific, logical, but fresh direction. Very complex layers, but not showboaty or distracting. Great stuff.