Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino Records)
January 12th, 2009
5.0/6.0
Just as In The Flowers, the opening track on Animal Collective’s ninth studio album, is about to lull you into a false sense of security with a comparatively understated opening, at 2:31, it literally explodes into a torrent of shimmering electronic noise more often associated with the band. What follows is an album that’s not only technically brilliant, but, during its best moments, totally life-affirming.
Track 2, My Girls, swiftly offers one of those moments. Shimmering synths on the run from the worst of early 1990s shape-throwing excess find themselves in a ménage-à-trois with sporadic handclaps and syncopated call-and-response vocals as Panda Bear muses over family matters. The whole affair is a successful exercise in genre blending, and anyone who dares to attempt the same should refer to My Girls as an example of excellent practice.
Elsewhere, Bluish is a blissful ode littered with throwaway clinks, baroque style piano tinkles and mid-register electronic squelches. Summertime Clothes is a carnival-on-a-compact-disc, with its samples of background chatter and repeated promise “# when the sun goes down, we’ll go out again #”.
Taste is what would probably happen if you popped an old reggae LP and an early Sony Mega Drive game into a blender, chucking in a drum machine for good measure. (Don’t try that at home, by the way). Lion In A Coma, sampling the moody jaw harp of Lathozi Mpahleni Manquin Madosini, is bold and striking.
One of the most important things about this album is how much of a difference the vocals make to the mood. There’s some spine-chilling, otherworldly harmonies – Bluish and My Girls are packed with such moments. When No More Runnin’, this album’s truly beautiful penultimate track, is held up to the shriller moments of Strawberry Jam, it’s evident that the band have made a big leap forward.
All in all, Animal Collective’s ability to create intriguing, technically excellent music is constantly improving. After repeated listens, Merriweather Post Pavilion feels like a joyful nostalgia trip through music – there’s world, reggae, pop, electronic, blues, afrobeat, ambient and more rolled up in this, their finest hour to date.
words: Kate Goodacre
Animal Collective return to the UK for a series of dates this spring: Trinity Centre, Bristol (March 22), Rescue Rooms, Nottingham (23), The Forum, London (24), TJ’s Woodhouse Club, Leeds (25), Static Gallery, Liverpool (26), Tripod, Dublin (27) and Stiff Kitten, Belfast (28).
My Girls will be released as a single on March 23rd, 2009.
www.myanimalhome.net
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Kate Goodacre is a freelance writer and photographer, and the founding editor of The Fugitive Motel. Her taste in music has been broadened greatly by her co-contributors over the years that the site and the Motel collective has been in business. Kate likes pink lady apples, recycling, open-wheeled motorsport, the smell of a well-kept park, the Today Programme and that strangely invigorating stillness you get in a city early on any weekend morning.