Animal CollectiveFor some reason, my brother and I have a strange fixation with the concept of "flipping out." I think it's just that the sudden transition from a becalmed, neutral state to hyperactive agitation strikes us as utterly hilarious.
Perhaps the best musical embodiment of our platonic ideal of flipping out is NYC's Animal Collective. Sure, there are other bands that spend more time being angular and spastic. But Animal Collective split their time between frenetic high-energy outbursts and calm, pastoral fireside jams. The key is the contrast - a sudden burst of energy is all the more thrilling if the listener has just been lulled into a blissful calm.
They've been around for the better part of the decade and have put out nary a dull release, but they've really come into their own with their last two albums - Sung Tongs and Feels. 2003's Here Comes the Indian is also highly rewarding - but the brush is much thicker and the melodies better hidden. Sung Tongs was a watershed because it packed the explosive moments into much more compact canisters and brought their uncanny knack for bizarrely catchy melodies to the fore. "Who Could Win a Rabbit" and "We Tigers" are absolutely frothing with energy and mind-numbing catchiness, while still committed to restless experimentation and tribal drum-circle work-outs. Longer tunes like "Winter's Love" and "Visiting Friends" take the same experimental nerve and understate and extend it, providing the album with texture and the listener with a much needed breather.
Last year's Feels wove the strangeness and the understatement back together into a more seamless whole. Opener "Did You See the Words" contains one of their most absurdly catchy hooks, but unfolds slowly with a constant rhythm. "Banshee Beat" builds so kinetically that they are able to make the pay-off feel ten times bigger than the same climax would in any other song.
When I saw them live, they were a different animal (collectively), emphasizing the noisier and harsher aspects of their work. Though I was disappointed not to hear the short outburst of "Who Could Win A Rabbit," their rabid tenacity won me over, and I became all the more excited to see where their wandering muses would lead them next.
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1 comment:
Where did you see them? I saw them at First Ave. last winter...about a year ago, I guess. It was great.
I haven't tracked down "Campfire Songs" yet...it's kind of hard to find. I would definitely like to hear it, though.
I have half-listened to that Akron/Family album and wasn't really pulled in by it...but I am going to have to check it out again.
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