Animal Collective

illustration by Phil Dunne

Ten years ago the good ship Animal Collective began its musical voyage, embarking into a deep ocean of avant-garde noise, bubbling psychedelia and whirlpools of high-frequency delirium. Year by year, release by release these four adventurers sailed ever-closer to their eventual destination, distracted by an Odyssey-like saga of encounters- the Sirens of synths-pop, the many-headed monster of freak folk, the divine seductions of ethnomusical experiments. In 2009 the band finally sailed through their water curses and found themselves in the shallow waters of a sunny lagoon. Disembarking from his well-worn vessel, Admiral Avey Tare regaled us with his adventures, told us his itinerary, and what they make of their new environment- Oh, and didn’t they lose a man overboard?

Hey Dave. Dave or Avey? Do you have to be in character to do interviews?

Haha, Dave is cool.

First of all I have to give you a collective thanks from the people in Dublin who got to your last gig, I think it’s pretty much everybody who was there’s show of the year.

Oh man, that night was such a mess. By the time we finally got to the venue we were exhausted, but really psyched up to play as good a show as we could, especially since we had such bad luck the last time we came over when I was sick. We wanted to just get out of our minds, and get everybody else out of theirs too. We ended up getting an amazing energy from you guys, it was genuinely one of our highlights of 2008 too. We’re looking forward to coming back in March and making it up to all the people who’ve missed out so far though.

If that show was a high point of 2008, I think Merriweather’s already in contention for the defining musical happening of 2009…

Awh man, thanks, we’re so excited for it.

You’ve talked about your music being certain colours before- What colour do you think Merriweather is?

I guess I see at as two different groups of styles, two different groups of colours splitting the record. Overall we talked about it having a lagoon quality, like a shallow lagoon with lots of blues and greens, quite tropical and shimmering, anything you’d see in a coral. So we see a lot of it as having a blue-green quality, but then a bunch of songs are more earthy.

When I talked to Brian (Geologist) when Strawberry Jam came out he explained the relation of the texture of that album cover and the sound inside, on Merriweather were you trying to create an optical illusion sound?

I think that particular optical illusion reminded us of that aquatic feeling, the waves of it, the shimmering, and the sense of being underwater. That’s why were so partial to it and decided to use it.

The visual record you’re working on now, is that following the same line of effect?

That’s a collaboration with our friend Danny. The music and the film are really joined together, it’s a little more experimental. We want it to be really difficult to seperate the images from the music. Because of that it’s a sort of different experience, compositionally. It’s not very song-y, but it still sounds like Animal Collective. And there are a few sweet pop moments on it.

Talking about the aquatic sound, I thought Water Curses was about as wet as an album could get, but Merriweather takes it to a whole different level…

Hahaha, I know! We did too…

What is it about that echo effect that attracts you?

I dunno. I guess with Water Curses it was a little more predetermined. It was called Water Curses from a joke phrase that came up during Strawberry Jam when all these tragic events seemed to be happening with water. There was a flood in the studio, and we kept spilling liquid on stuff and things like this…

And it start seeping into the sound through the mic inputs?

Exactly! Everything we came up with started being like that, people would come up to us after shows and tell us it was like being underwater.

Is Merriweather a more electronic version of your more acoustic stuff, if you get me? Song-wise it’s a lot more along the lines of Sung Tongs, say, but it also sounds like your using more samplers and electronics.

Oh totally, we’re approaching an electronic album in an organic way. Even though we’re utilizing a lot of the samplers we want to gel with each other in a more natural way. Plus a lot of the sounds we’re sampling are acoustic instruments. Lots of string, guitar, drum samples. And I think the sound reflects that.

How does the album name reflect the music within it?

Well Merriweather is this venue in Maryland we’re all aware off from that we went to shows in when we were younger. There’s this rumour going around that we saw the Grateful Dead there when we were kids, we actually never did. I think the Dead were actually banned from playing there! The venue’s in a sort of planned community, and a lot of the community bands were from there and none of them liked the Dead at all. But the name signifies the ritual of listening to music outside. Merriweather has this really large lawn you can sit on and chill out during the music and enjoy the atmosphere. When we were younger and listening to some Neu! track or something with a big guitar solo we’d say “Man! This is so Merriweather!”. We often got into music that way, when we were younger, from just hanging out outside and listening to all kinds of new stuff. So we picked it because it had a really personal meaning but is about that communal feeling.

Do you think the album’s so Merriweather then?

I think it has this pretty epic quality. A lot of the early takes of our songs we noticed seem to come from the outside, or would descend on your, like ‘In The Flowers’. We also really liked that it had the word ‘weather’ in it, because we started attaching different weather patterns with the songs, tornadoes, hurricanes and tropical suns and stuff like that, since when we recording the weather was pretty drastic- We had to shut down the studio because of a tornado at one point.

Lyrically and musically speaking, a lot of Animal Collective’s stuff is always innately linked with nature. But, apart from Noah, you guys live in New York City. Is it sort of escapist that your songs are so set in this less man-made universe?

In New York sometimes you do forget you’re part of nature sometimes, and me and Brian are lucky in that we get out all the time to tour, and it is a breather to get out of the city. We’re lucky that we grew up in Maryland, which is where I guess a lot of that stuff stems from.

I read a preview from a big music magazine saying that Merriweather is a ‘landmark American album’… Do you think there’s anything distinctively “American” or representative of America in Animal Collective’s music?

Haha… It’s difficult to say being on the inside, though I think originally I would never have thought that. A lot of interviewers bring up the Beach Boys in regards to our sound. It’s so weird. I know some people think sometimes sounds a lot like Brian Wilson, but it’s still weird. I mean we like the Beatles, probably more so than the Beach Boys, they’re not like our favourite band. I love Smile and stuff, but I would hardly ever throw them on. Someone said to me recently when they were here “The Beatles are so British” but there’s nothing really British about Animal Collective at all, so you must be more American. I guess… We are American, which is probably where that comes from. Something like Summertime Clothes is very New York, lyrically, being about living in a city so hot you need to go outside and walk around in it.

When bands like El Guincho and Ruby Suns and Born Ruffians take that Animal Collective template and run with it do you feel more possesive, or proud that people are using your sound to some degree?

That’s a whole new thing for us, even just talking about it. People bring being highly influential up a lot now… I think it’s cool when bands that are our peers say we’re a really sweet band and are influential to them, because we used to be at the stage where we’d say the same thing about other bands. But it’s not like we’re in a position to point fingers and say “Oh they’re ripping us off”, or anything.

Do you feel in a position of some responsibility then, and any pressure from that?

No, not really. (Contemplatitively) We only really feel responsible to ourselves. Ever since we started we always wanted to be an act doing something singular, something individual, whether we were popular or not. We don’t let other people’s opinions effect us all that much, so long as we feel we’re progressive and moving forward with our own things, being experimental if you want to say that. But we like to feel soulful, make music that comes directly from us, and we’re very aware of being derivative. We want to be Animal Collective.

Is there anything particularly insulting or frustrating critics have said about Animal Collective?

I wouldn’t say insulting as such, but there was a school of people who thought were just a bunch of jokesters, or tricksters taking the piss out of modern rock, trying to poke fun at it. And people who think we don’t work very hard at what we do, that we just improvise and throw everything together, or don’t care what we do onstage. That would be the most frustrating thing, and there are some other smaller things like when we get too associated with drugs, called druggies or weirdos, or people thinking we’re being weird for weird’s sake. To us there’s nothing weird about what we’re doing at all. That and the whole “childlike” thing. So many of our more recent records have been inspired by who we are now and our current experiences, but get tagged with this sort of childlike wonder. I think it is good to view life that way, as if everything is new and untainted but we’re not these guys obsessed with writing about our childhood memories.

I think that’s down to you making a lot more positive and optimistic music than the more cynical-is-cool majority would.

Totally.

Has the band dynamic changed at all since Deakin stopped contributing?

In the sense that he’s a pretty big guitar-orientated part of the band it’s shown I think on this record, but it’s fine I mean, it challenges us to find different sounds and directions, and we’re quite used to that challenge and that dynamic from one of us going away for a while. Not just musically, I mean personality too, Josh is a pretty big personality, especially onstage, his energy is definitely missed by us. But it’s something we’re used to having to work around, and find new ways of filling those gaps.

Have you got any other projects in the pipeline? Would you consider putting out another Pullhair Rubeye record, say?

It sorta depends on what comes up, we’ve been really Animal Collective-orientated lately, especially with this visual project coming up. I know Noah has started working on some new songs, which will probably just evolve over time, he usually takes his time with records. With me collaborating with people like my wife (Kyia Brennan of Iceland swoonsome collective Múm) or my friend Eric (Copeland, of fellow NYC noise-experimentalists Black Dice) it comes down to when I have time to do it, when we’re hanging out, and it’s relaxed which sadly hasn’t been a lot lately. It’s something I do like to do a lot though, so hopefully something will happen soon.

So what do you want 2009 to bring Animal Collective?

Surprises, I hope! I hope it’s as productive and interesting as this one, I’m amazed we got so much done this year. Maybe there’ll be some time off, I do like to relax, to travel a lot, but I do hope we get a lot done.

Has there been anywhere that the band hasn’t taken you on your travels yet that you’d like to go?

I don’t know how possible it is, but I’d really like to play in Africa. I love African music, old folk music, it’d be wild to explore certain areas like that. We’d also like to tour Asia a lot more, it’s something we don’t get to do a whole lot.

Merriweather Post Pavillion is out now. Animal Collective play Tripod on the 27th March.

Grounded

Some of you may have noticed that Analogue has been very quiet over the last two months. Unfortunately I’ve been forced to make a difficult decision about whether to continue printing Analogue or not. Over the last month, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to keep the mag going in printed form but it just isn’t viable any more. After 3 successful issues as a Trinity publication, Analogue was launched nationwide in August 2008 - literally two months after I finished my finals in college. Since then 4 issues of Analogue have been published, each building on the strengths and admittedly, the mistakes of previous issues.

For a bunch of college students and recent graduates, we did pretty well at launching a reasonably well respected magazine that covered some excellent indie and electronic music. I don’t really have too much else to say, I really didn’t want to make some grandiose statement about what we’ve achieved and how we’re victims of the recession blah blah blah. We gave it a go and sadly it wasn’t really the right time. So for now, there won’t be another print issue. Analogue will continue online and some interesting new features will be added to the site soon.

To all the bands we’ve interviewed and all our readers, Thanks a million.

Cheers,
Brendan McGuirk
Analogue Editor

Women

Women
Women
JagJaguwar

From Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart’s hometown Calgary, Canada comes this frequently intriguing slice of obscurant pop-noise. Women co-opt freak folk rhythms, but their lo-fi style of presentation keeps everything distinctly claustrophobic. Given that the record was recorded in the “basement, outdoor culvert and crawl space” of fellow Calgarian Chad VanGaalen, it’s not surprising that the overriding mood is close and pressured.

It’s an oeuvre that is never adopted for its own sake, however, and the ominous closeness serves the set of songs exceedingly well. The guitar motif in Lawncare is hypnotic and almost reassuring against the harsh, unfamiliar, reverb-soaked background of insistent drums and hidden vocals that spans the whole album. Black Rice, conversely, lands somewhere between Liars and Jefferson Airplane, and the echoes that obscure its melodies simply add to their mysterious charm.

It’s not a stretch to say that Women synthesise the wildly differing elements of the contemporary sphere of indie-and-beyond. There are elements of things in play here that couldn’t but be the result of a vast record collection taking in everything from 1950s melodrama to the latest Deerhoof record. The breadth of styles that appear under the common theme of the claustrophobic make this an album that diffuses its charms slowly but surely over multiple spins.

Merriweather Post Pavillion

Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavillion
Domino

Chemical or natural? There is a single moment on Merriweather Post Pavillion, after a few lush, watery minutes of introduction, where the music reaches out of the speakers and cracks open reality so that you can see inside, in a way that only Tibetan boddhisativas and LSD-devoted professors usually experience. That moment, called forth with an invocational ‘if I could just leave my body for a night…’ is a genuine landmark in the winding path of music’s history. There is a level of transcendence, of originality, of genius present in that moment on In The Flowers, and on Merriweather in general, that elevates it instantly to the realm of hushed tones. So, is it chemical or natural?

It doesn’t matter. It’s easier for once to talk about this album in terms of what’s it not, rather than what it is. It’s not a retread of anything that has come before. It’s not difficult to engage with, but it’s also not populist in the least. It’s never dull. In fact, over eleven tracks, it comes off as almost too short and leaves a small but inescapable feeling of disappointment that it’s over, in the way that all great albums should. But that’s not to say that it’s unfinished, or imperfect. It’s not. This is Keats’ well-wrought urn manifest, an album genuinely without low points or flaws.

But even out of this consistent brilliance, there come peaks. Besides the aforementioned In The Flowers, My Girls is stunningly beautiful and layered in Panda Bear’s signatory reverb-drenched harmonies, erroneously attributed to the Beach Boys. Lyrically, it’s an affectingly earnest account of the responsibility of providing for family. The evident singalong qualities of the refrain create a strange feeling of intrusion into Panda’s ‘four walls and abode slats’, but the ability to get such basic, instinctive emotions into a song this catchy without coming off as cheesy must be marvelled at.

Summertime Clothes recalls the lyrically-evocative Animal Collective of the days before Panda Bear was a significant songwriting influence, painting a picture of happy and naïve summer days over a seriously danceable pulse. But the next track proves exactly why it was a good idea to give Panda equal air-time. Daily Routine grows out of individual organ squeaks into an arpeggiator-based piece of everyday escapism that dissolves eventually into a slow repetition that’s almost shamanic in texture. Which then gives way to the golden melodies of Bluish. Which then give way to… you get the picture.

It doesn’t let up. The album closes with Brother Sport, tropical and trance-inducing in a way El Guincho could only dream of. After a mid-section of ever-building rhythms and a screaming Avey Tare, the tumult reaches saturation point. The clouds part and a new day dawns. With one of the most smile-inducing melodies you will ever hear, Animal Collective give you two minutes to dance and forget your troubles before the album finally ends. Merriweather Post Pavillion is an album that effects emotions in a very real way, pulling you headlong through nostalgia, hope and the forty shades of joy. I can’t think of another album that is as perfectly executed, as plain perfect as Merriweather Post Pavillion. I would be extremely surprised if this didn’t turn out to be the best album of the year. Or the decade. I’ll stop at that before I say something I might regret later.
.

Crystal Stilts

Brooklynites Crystal Stilts have a touch of Joy Division to their sound, but it is in an atmospheric, rather than sonic way. They have captured the essence of post punk, but sound like they have been influenced by the music from both sides of that era. There are bits of Smiths, Velvet Underground, Jesus and Mary Chain and rockabilly that are mixed together without sounding ripped off or pastiche. Analogue got a chance to catch up with front man JB Townsend in advance of their gig in Whelans.

You grew up in Florida but are now based in Brooklyn. How long have you lived in Brooklyn and what was it that attracted you to Brooklyn?

JB Townsend: I’ve been living in Brooklyn for about 7 years. Brad and I moved here around the same time from Florida. When you live on the East Coast it’s the obvious move to make. We both wanted to get out of there. It was a fairly dismal place.

Was it a musical decision? Were you making music in south Florida?

We weren’t really making music at that time and didn’t have plans to start a band. We both kind of joked about it. Brad doesn’t really play an instrument and wasn’t really a singer then. He was into writing poems and stuff. Then after a few months of living in Brooklyn, this guy we knew had a practice space in Greenpoint with nights available. I would go there. I invited brad along, and for quite a while it was kind of directionless. We were experimenting and trying out different sounds. After about 6 months to a year of doing that, we had a little batch of songs which was the first single we put out. Also, a few of the songs on the LP are also from those days.

Do you consider the Brooklyn music scene to be a collective musical environment?

There are a lot of bands that are known as Brooklyn bands that we don’t really interact with. Because there are people here from so many different places, it almost creates sects in the Brooklyn scene and divides it. There are probably about ten bands that we’re pretty close to, although it’s only really been in the past year or so that everyone has gotten past anything weird.

Do you think that your success has had anything to do with that?

I don’t think it’s been anything to do with success. It’s more an affinity. Especially with Blank Dogs. That’s been great. Mike has been such a help with everything. Mike from Blank Dogs has done really well getting everyone together.

I’m pretty curious about the recording process and the techniques you use to create that sound. On the EP especially, there’s an almost Martin Hannett-like shimmer to the tracks.

That EP has a very cold sound, but also a lot of reverb and tape. When mixing I tend to just disregard 90’s production values. On the EP I used a Roland TR606 Analogue drum machine with some reverb, then doubled the drum track with real drums. I also like mono sounding recordings; so on the EP there isn’t a whole lot of panning going on. The sound is mostly centred.

So sticking to the recording process, and production, I wanted to ask about the positioning of the vocals in the mix. Is their depth a deliberate technique to make people think about, or hide what is being sung? Or is it just an aesthetic thing?

Well reverb adds volume, so when you put reverb on something, you tend to turn it down, but we also like the idea of not being able to make out the lyrics, and then you have to find out what they are. Then when you do find out, they’re not bad I think.

I can hear a lot of your influences in the music, so I’m not going to ask you to list them out, but I’d be interested to hear what makes you tick at the moment.

At the moment, I’ve been listening to the Trashmen and a lot of doowop records that I buy for a dollar. There’s a record store called Academy in Brooklyn, and in the basement they have tonnes of old 45’s. I like to go down there and look for odd R&B and doowop records. They’re pretty fun to discover.

You’re on an independent label at the moment, has there been any interest from any other parties?
About a year ago, we weren’t really stirring up anything. We had that EP that just came out on vinyl only. When we were making the EP we thought that Slumberland seemed like a good idea, but we had no idea if Slumberland was even accepting bands. Then Mike from Slumberland contacted us about doing a single out of the blue and I was like “well we have this whole album if you want to hear it!” He liked it, and from there we decided we wanted to mix it again. Slumberland is an amazing label.

Considering the fact that you’re on an independent label, and the fact that you had to cancel our interview yesterday to go to work, how difficult is it for a band like Crystal Stilts to survive without day jobs?

Right now we’re kind of at the point where we’re almost able to not work. Once we’re touring and more records come out, that will help.

I hope this doesn’t ruffle any feathers, but is there any way you can explain to me what happened to ‘Converging in the Quiet’? The version on the EP is my favourite song of yours, but the album version doesn’t seem to have as much kick.
It’s probably going to tear some fans a bit. That version was recorded in 2005, and I guess you change the way you play. Those records are studio records where I played almost all of them. We also decided that we wanted to re-record all those old songs, because at the time that record was not out, it was CDR only. I wanted to do it a little bit more like we play it live, because then we used a drum machine, but now we play with a drummer.

So tell me a bit about the band set up right now.

It’s the same five people. Kyle, who has been playing organ with us live for a few years, Andy, who plays bass, Frankie and Brad singing. It’s basically been me and Brad since the beginning, but we’ve had some different members. For the past year and a half, it has been a pretty steady line up.

Is that line up just for playing live or have you made any recordings?

We recorded a single with that line up in the way we play live. It was really nice to be able to do that. It took a lot less time. When we play live, it’s a little different. Some people think it’s great, but some people just expect to hear the record.

Well if that’s the case, they should just stay at home and listen to it.

Crystal Stilts play their first Irish gig upstairs in Whelan’s on 19th of February, tickets are €14.

Pantha Du Prince - Saturn Strobe

The Ambience Affair Ep Launch tonight

The Ambience Affair launch their debut Ep ‘Fragile Hearts’ tonight upstairs in Whelans, I’d definitely recommend going. This Ep has been a long time coming, songs have been reworked, re-recorded and mastered several times before Marc and Jamie found what they were looking for. The two tracks from it that I’ve heard are excellent and really manage to capture the energy of their live performance and then some. The title track Fragile Hearts has an eerie slow building momentum to it that sucks you in bit by bit as the guitar loops trip along gradually becoming more intricate. Support tonight comes from the stunning Goatboy and Sleep Thieves, who I’ve waffled about on the blog before. Make sure you’re there early so you catch Goatboy (think Fleet Foxes with only one guy), it’s his first gig under the name and it’ll be a great preview of the beautiful Ep he’s currently working on.

“Vacant Hearts” - The Ambience Affair from Souljacker on Vimeo.

Here We Go Magic - Tunnelvision

Here We Go Magic Myspace

Buraka Som Sistema

illustration by Phil Dunne

Kuduro isn’t a genre known to the vast majority of the Irish populace. In fact, the chances are quite high that you weren’t even aware there was such a thing as kuduro until curiosity inspired you to read this article. Either that or you’re a die-hard fan of the stuff; my sincerest apologies for patronising you if this is the case.

Likewise, Buraka Som Sistema are a band you’ve either never heard of or are madly in love with. Analogue had the chance to sit down and have a chin-wag with these Portuguese beat-meisters at their pre-Christmas DJ set in The Twisted Pepper. Two of the band - L’il John and Riot - producer Conductor is sadly absent - and guest vocalist/pretty-much-member Kalaf have been busy touring Europe.

Riot, guitar in hand, idly strums some tunes as L’il John gives a brief explanation of what exactly kuduro is. “You can describe it as a sound that’s based on […] African DJs’ and producers’ attempts at doing techno and house music. It’s picking up on the different aspects that they created around their own interpretations of these things, and it’s developing that and giving our own European version of it at the same time.”

Fast tempos, frenetic African beats and pounding bass drums under a rapid fire of MCing are typical characteristics of Kuduro. The genre is almost exclusively of Angolan origin, and with a high concentration of Angolan immigrants in certain suburbs in Lisbon it’s no surprise that the city is essentially home to the movement.

L’il John and Riot, making music since their teens, hooked up with kuduro producer Conductor a few years ago and formed Buraka Som Sistema. Describing themselves as “progressive kuduro” (pretty much a meaningless term; “it was a joke in an interview” confesses L’il John) and with a handful of EPs under their belt, they managed to attract the attention of M.I.A., who quickly got in touch. “It got to a point where she knew about us because we met so many mutual DJs and producers,” Riot explains, “so basically one day she called our studio, she talked with Jo?o [Barbosa, a.k.a. L’il John] and that’s how we got together.” Their collaborations resulted in Sound of Kuduro, the most popular single off their debut LP Black Diamond, which was released in November.

The album title reveals a lot about the band’s approach to their craft and origins, according to L’il John. “In South Africa, they had all that apartheid stuff, black people were excluded from experiencing the whole country, they were restricted to areas. What they call a black diamond is… imagine, a son of a couple that lived in apartheid, a son coming up from nowhere and making it for himself. That’s called a black diamond.”

When the genre first began to emerge in the poorest suburbs of Lisbon, kuduro artists were essentially forced to use aging and severely limited equipment to make their music. “It actually comes from production,” L’il John says. “It was never traditional, it was a reaction to traditional music. It was kids with their parents and grandparents playing the same instruments throughout their lives, […] and, even though they can play the same instrument, they broke that link in a way and just grabbed a shitty PC from seven years ago, installed Fruity Loops or some software like that, and started doing beats.”

These days Buraka Som Sistema have managed to accumulate enough of a following to be able to afford a plush studio in Lisbon, complete with de rigeur studio software behemoth Pro Tools. While other dance acts may grow to obsess about analogue synths and vintage compressors, this clearly isn’t in the Buraka/kuduro spirit. “It’s not about having the ultimate kick drum or snare,” L’il John says, “it’s about trying to pass on an idea or a concept.”

When I ask them for their thoughts on illegal downloading and whether I think it’s hurt them or helped them, their response is refreshing. “In Angola, it’s more or less the same process; when you release a track, people buy your albums, but they also [illegally] copy the music,” Kalaf explains, “so if your music is really good, you’ll find bootlegs; if it’s crap, you’ll find bootlegs. Simple as that.”

Future plans for the band include the release of Black Diamond in the United States, though Kalaf is already looking onwards. “We really want to make the biggest show that we can make with our size,” he reveals. “To be able to throw a good show, thats the way you fight the downloading - to be able to make a show that people will like to see and will remember.”

the Analogue Hour tonight

The Analogue Hour on 2XM has been moved to Wednesdays from 7-8pm. Tune in on DAB or online here. On tonight’s show I’ll be playing new music from Jeremy Jay, Pens and Dent May. The show will also feature an interview I did with Barry and Ger from Children Under Hoof plus a live version of a new song by them called Bonefire.

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