Animal Collective are more than ready for their close up. Together for a decade, the trio have moved from the "f**ked up sound" of their Baltimore schooldays to a more melodic, but just as eclectic urban rhythm. JIM CARROLL catches up with the band before their Irish gigs later this month
THEY KNOW that this is their finest hour to date. Animal Collective may have released an abundance of music since their 2000 debut Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They're Vanished, but this new album is a different ball game.
With Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective have reached that fascinating juncture where things can change for them as a band. After their lengthy gestation period as underground heroes, the new album gives them the opportunity to make the leap to the next level. The band may have dithered about this before, but the difference now is that the rest of the world has caught up with what they're doing.
More and more people want music that is ambitious, challenging and ecstatic. With this album, Animal Collective have delivered that and more. Merriweather Post Pavilion's restless, euphoric, hallucinogenic grooves and melodies, sounds which come from every conceivable angle and position, are perfect for these times.
Animal Collective's Sung Tongsand Strawberry Jamalbums are often cited as landmark records, as is Noah Lennox's solo release as Panda Bear, Person Pitch. But the Maryland band have never burst through the clouds in this fashion before.
The three band members involved in making the new album admit they knew they were onto a good thing while still in the middle of recording sessions in Oxford, Mississippi.
Brian Weitz, AKA Geologist, clearly remembers the moment when he started to feel good about things. “We always think after we finish every album that it is our best album so far and this one was no exception,” he says. “But after the first couple of days and tracks, even before those tracks were mixed, we kind of thought that it was sounding amazing and that we had a very special record coming together.”
For Noah Lennox, AKA Panda Bear, it was the ease with which everything was done that impressed him. “Everything went really smoothly this time in a really nice way. Every step of the process – writing, rehearsing, touring and ultimately recording the songs – felt good. It wasn’t totally easy because we’re that kind of band, but we didn’t encounter any big hang-ups or problems which was a welcome change for us.”
Dave Portner, AKA Avey Tare, says he’s attempting to leave the gushing reaction from fans and critics to one side. “We’re disconnected from a lot of fuss around the record. We feel really good when we hear people are responding to the music, but whether it’s super-positive or super-negative, it’s unwise to pay too much attention to it. I find our audience know that we’re the kind of band who won’t compromise what we do or how we do it to increase our audience.”
The more they talk, the more it makes sense that Animal Collective are ready for their close-up. When they were first starting out, the music made by a bunch of kids who’d known each other since schooldays in Baltimore was freaky, experimental and abrasive. Portner calls it “fucked up and weird” and Lennox recalls early years spent “trying to use our instruments in ways no-one had thought of before”.
But life moves on and the music evolves. Weitz believes the new album could only have been made in 2008.
“As we get older, and we’re all around 30 now, our music is becoming more melodic and there are more pop touches thrown in there,” he says. “When we were younger and our lives were more chaotic, the music reflected that state of mind. Now, we’re getting married and having kids and the pop stuff that was buried a bit before is more in the forefront for people to hear without having to search through the music.”
If the new album is more accessible than what's gone before it, that was certainly not the intention. "It's hard for us to judge these things," says Weitz. "We thought Strawberry Jamwas difficult, but lots of people said it was very poppy. There were times when we were recording this album that we thought it was maybe a bit too weird. Yes, it's melodic, but it's a different kind of melodic to what people are used to."
Lennox explains that the new songs grew out of necessity. “We had only a month before finishing the last album and starting touring,” he explains. “Deakin (founder member Josh Dibb) had decided to take a break from the band, so we couldn’t play any of our old songs on tour and we had that month to write a whole new set of material.
"We talked about it, emailed ideas and melodies around to each other and, in just two weeks, we wrote eight of the songs for Merriweather Post Pavilion. Six months of touring later and a lot of tweaking the songs at home, we got together again with Ben (Allen, producer) and did the record in four or five weeks. There's also a bunch of other tracks from those sessions which people haven't heard yet. But that's all the time it took."
While most bands use live shows to show off music from their latest album and push sales, Animal Collective have usually preferred to play brand new music when they tour. Their record label must love them for that approach.
“Our current label Domino have never mentioned it to us, but our old label Fat Cat used to advise us against playing all new material,” remembers Weitz. “Back after Sung Tongs had come out, they thought it could be a big record. When we told them that we weren’t going to play any of those songs on tour, they were very taken aback. They asked to play some songs from the album so we played one or two.
“We resisted the idea because we hadn’t done it before, but we thought they were our record label and maybe they have a different perspective on things. And you know what, we enjoyed it. Now, our live sets are about half-and-half new material and old material. While it’s very self-satisfying to always play new material, we see that the fans enjoy the tracks which are already out there and that makes the shows that bit more enjoyable. It beats playing to blank stares when people don’t know the songs.”
When the band released Strawberry Jamin 2007, they found themselves competing for attention with one of their own. Lennox's Person Pitch album, which he released as Panda Bear, eclipsed his band's release in many ways.
"I wasn't expecting that at all; I just hoped it would do a little better than the previous album, Young Prayer," Lennox says. "I was bowled over by the excitement people got from it."
"We didn't see them as competing projects because they were very different records," adds Weitz. "We're always aware that some people like some of our records more than others. We're a band who offer a wide variety of different styles. Strawberry Jamand Person Pitchoffered two different sides of us. Strawberry Jamgot a lot of attention because it was difficult for people to bring up one without the other."
There will be another Panda Bear record, though not in the short-term. “I started a new record, but I felt the couple of songs I did weren’t quite there yet,” explains Lennox. “I don’t think they were different enough from the other stuff I was doing and I need to change my ideas and how I work a little. It will be some time before it comes out because of my Animal Collective commitments, but I’d like release a few songs here and there as singles.”
Lennox’s work colleagues are generous in their praise for his solo work.
" Person Pitch" is such a specific, unique sound and I think it did a lot for sample-based music," says Portner. "For me, it's a landmark record in that form of music composition, like Paul's Boutiqueby the Beastie Boys. I've definitely noticed people making music which sounds a lot like Person Pitchor sampling similar sources."
The band claim they have yet to notice other acts tapping into the Animal Collective sound. "Maybe I'm too close to it to see, but I don't notice anyone making music like us as much," says Weitz. "There are certain styles like the strumming acoustic guitar stuff on Sung Tongsor the pounding percussion which I hear in other bands, but I don't look at it necessarily as us influencing them.
“People always assume we were influenced by Mercury Rev, Radiohead and the Flaming Lips and they’re three bands none of us have ever listened to. But I don’t discount the comparison. I don’t say it’s bullshit just because we’ve never heard those bands. Bands sound alike because they’ve listened to the same things in their record collections and drew on pieces of inspiration and influence from the same records.”
No doubt, the numbers drawing inspiration from Animal Collective are set to grow if they continue to make albums such as Merriweather Post Pavilion.
Sure, it’s taken them nearly 10 years and eight albums to get here, but they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I think the longevity of us as a band is down to the fact that this is what we do and this is what we get excited about,” says Lennox. “We’ve got nothing else that we really want to do or know how to do anymore.”
** Animal Collective play Dublin’s Tripod on March 27th and Belfast’s Stiff Kitten on March 28th
Music video - bus not as we know it
There are plans afoot for an Animal Collective DVD but, naturally, it will be nothing like other band DVDs.
"A film company approached us a while ago to do a tour documentary and live DVD, but those things aren't very interesting to us," explains Brian Weitz.
"A lot of bands do them and they all look the same with the same shots of a sunset out a van window."
Instead, the band approached Danny Perez, a film director they'd worked with previously, and started to work on a visual album. "In film, people say you have to have a narrative or else it's a straight-up art piece, but we think the genre of film can do more," says Weitz. "When bands put out albums, the albums don't have to be concept albums. There seems to be a lot more freedom for records to go wherever they want so that sparked the idea for this.
"We'll be working on the music and the visuals simultaneously, letting them influence each other and combining the results into a DVD or doing some live screenings. The idea is never to separate the music and the visuals so the songs we record for the next project are ones we've never going to play live."
It is expected that the as-yet untitled film will gets its debut screening this summer.
