[nothingmastered]

Cooper wrote:

nothingmastered wrote:

Cooper wrote:

What’s the point of music if not catharsis

the point of catharsis is that its not all the time. if all music was cathartic then it wouldn't mean shit.

Yeah but I’m being selfish and I want all of Avey’s music to feel like Fireworks

cant fault ya there

[Hellomark]

New song is cool, actually don't know how much I liked Panda's contribution though... Might take a few more listens but rn his verse isn't doing that much for me.

['Worms']

just now realizing how much funnier it would've been to only post the song in the Panda Bear features and productions thread

[foxtrot]

Feels like PW via Neurons. I dig it.

[hewasbeingstinky]

nothingmastered wrote:

Cooper wrote:

nothingmastered wrote:

Cooper wrote:

What’s the point of music if not catharsis

the point of catharsis is that its not all the time. if all music was cathartic then it wouldn't mean shit.

Yeah but I’m being selfish and I want all of Avey’s music to feel like Fireworks

cant fault ya there

This might be a naval gazey kind of line of questioning, but I wonder what this song is doing if it’s not catharsis? What is the song accomplishing? What do you think the lesson Dave learned from his old friend Noah was?

Talking about the point of music and what it achieves is always extremely fascinating to me. I tend to just lurk the forum because I have a hard time knowing how to talk about music despite being such a huge fan of the band.

I liked this song. To me it seems more about achieving a zone than a catharsis. One of Avey’s modes seems to be what I would call the funhouse. To me this music achieves a mild pop overwhelm, the melody is fun and hooky, but the production and the harmony are characteristically maximal and disjointed. The funhouse is a playful place of disorienting the senses. Mirrors that squish or elongate you, bridges that move while you try to run over them, giant tunnels that spin when you step in them, etc. I feel like this is the vibe of this song, which feels very in line with the CHZ/Slasher Flicks aesthetic.

What I think is still an interesting question: what did Dave learn from his old friend Noah?

[tdegenaro]

this song is for SURE funhouse vibes, great post hewasbeingstinky

as for the question, what did he learn from noah, i'm not sure, but i like this track a lot, i like how inconsequential it is (compliment) and i like how it reminds me of a top 40 rap song, esp. with the feature - the way the "beat" changes before noah drops in. very cool

[paralleoneirdwell]

Hearing and feeling this brings me back to the very first time i heard the band, in 2006 when my friend put on Sung Tongs and Feels, kind of in the background but it worked really well to be introduced that way!!

there's a deepest evolutionary emotional logic, adding dimensions and true resilience to life!!

[Fovrodi]

I'd wager it's billed as Avey feat. Panda Bear to temper casual fan expectations? Like people might think it's a single for a new album or something

'Worms' wrote:

just now realizing how much funnier it would've been to only post the song in the Panda Bear features and productions thread

Pahaha

[Hellomark]

Liking this song more and more with each listen. The chorus is so great. Agree that the production reminds me of a lot of popular contemporary rap, especially with how Noah's part is introduced.

[pox]

agreed on the funhouse vibe as well as the top 40 vibe. the latter is what i associate more with panda, so maybe that's his influence on the song. compared to other solo work from avey, this one is concise and cleanly produced, with a digital sound most pronounced in the dynamics of panda's vocal effects. they dabbled with a similar vocal effect on studio 'defeat' but this has none of that analog warmth. it feels closer to the wavelength of the 'buoys' album. the end of panda's verse is sort of a bait and switch where it almost sounds like it's about to transition to a chorus with a poppy beat drop, but instead it's a more shambling avey-esque transition into a clattering final verse. i enjoy how it brushes up against obvious catharsis but instead veers in a weirder unsettling direction with panda warbling like a ghost over the last section.

i kinda sorta agree with the poster who said they don't dig the kitschy avey songs like this one. personally i think his singing voice lends itself more to emotive, impressionistic songs with more malleable melodies. he can write a pop ditty but it's not his most convincing mode. i actually think 'painting with' is the instance where it bothers me least, because they both sideline the emotive qualities of their voices and let the singing act purely like a rube goldberg machine getting you from point a to point b. with this song though, his voice sounds human and warm, so there's a slightly uncomfortable disparity with the singsong carnival vibe. i might prefer a version of this song where avey and panda swap parts. panda can do these carnival jingles all day long, as seen on 'reset.' it's a natural fit for his current singing style.

[Glints]

Cooper wrote:

Spoiler: show

Glints wrote:

I don't know how I feel about it. It feels like a 7s B Side. It's nothing stellar in my opinion, but it could grow on me. The drums and overall rhythm just feel lacking is my biggest issue

Yes agreed, how many times am I gonna excitedly listen to a new Avey song just to get ran over by this awkward sing-along vibe. Can’t stand his campy-kitschy sensibilities (except when they inform genuine emotion)… Avey is so much better when he’s making “soul music” as panda calls it. What’s the point of music if not catharsis

Had to spoil my vampire tongue

I'm glad he's having fun but for me stuff like Eucalyptus and Down There were his best works. I don't hate it by any means but it just kinda feels like a throw away. I enjoy campy kitschy stuff but tbh this seems like a 7s b side like I said, which I wasn't super big on personally. I definitely get the Dojo and Fun house vibes, or like Uncle Donut in a way. Not my fav vibe from him. I feel it's mostly the audio mix on the drums, they feel really flat.

Weird how in the end with Pandas vocals it almost sounds like a Tame Impala song

[Benji]

it might sound naïve or dismissive but personally I just like to hear them experiment with whatever they like, even if that direction seems backwards, as if pop is backwards

[Alcohol]

Amen.

[tulis]

pox wrote:

i might prefer a version of this song where avey and panda swap parts.

this is an interesting take! i'd be excited to hear that, too. sorry I don't have more to add to the conversation

[Alcohol]

MrAirplane wrote:

from the domino site

wrote:

"Right now the basic process of making music is more important to me than any outcome,” says Portner. “It’s a process of learning. Collaboration is as much about learning from someone as it is creating something with someone. There’s a nice surprise element. I wonder, what is this person going to do with this idea? Where is this song going to go when someone else is guiding the ship? I’m doing the research. Here’s me attempting to learn something from my old friend Noah."

Avey the Anarchist. I wonder if he’s referring to the album cycle grind, having to create for the sake of an end (an LP, EP, whatever) instead of having the means and the end wrapped-up together. Process-as-product, or something. I’d love for the band to really break-out of the Domino straight jacket into something anarchical and weird.

[nothingmastered]

I think we'd all love to see Paw Tracks come back, which was exactly what you're talking about. But I think his idea with DOSed is a bit of a revival of that for him and his Asheville buddies. And I do think Avey's pretty done with the increasingly outdated music media grind from the 2000s of trying to make endless acclaimed albums.

Maybe he'll be able to work out looser terms with Domino that allow him to operate more anarchically with his solo and local collaborations and then do full AnCo releases under them. Domino could loosen up its process in general

[jusswerjk]

Seems like kind of a pointless song to me and I wonder if Noah made it lame on purpose.

Is Dave about to release something????

[hewasbeingstinky]

lol this is the kind of thing I’m talking about!! What is the point of a song? What qualities make a song pointless? Not attacking just genuinely interested in what people mean when they say something like that.

[Cooper]

hewasbeingstinky wrote:

lol this is the kind of thing I’m talking about!! What is the point of a song? What qualities make a song pointless? Not attacking just genuinely interested in what people mean when they say something like that.

You are being obtuse perhaps… I find it hard to believe that you don’t have an intuitive understanding of the “point of a song”… the answer is implicit in your enjoyment of music

Spoiler: show

it’s beauty, baby

[hewasbeingstinky]

I appreciate the call out ahaha. I am definitely attempting to be a little obtuse and deconstructive. But I also feel like we're all acting as if we have the same sense of a songs point, and I'm not so sure if I understand that mode of discussion so well. It feels like this form of discourse can be reduced to either "I liked this song" or "I didn't like this song" without losing any information and the reduction. But I think a more interesting discussion could potentially occur if we attempt to analyze what we even mean, see if there are parallels in the aesthetic metrics we're assessing a song with. And tbh I don't really even know if the point of a song is beauty? I don't know if I would call Vampire Tongues beautiful, unless I'm abstracting the notion of beauty quite a bit. But I don't think that detracts from its point? But also like does a song even have to have a point in order to justify its existence?

This is part of why I wanted to discuss the framing Dave introduced by asking what he learned from his old friend Noah. I think there's potentially interesting discourse to uncover from this line of questioning maybe? Was that statement about form? Is he learning about melody and lyric writing by leaving the space open for Noah? Was this statement simply an off the cuff cute sentiment written for press release?

I also am curious about finding new ways to discuss this band. I've been lurking this forum since the Strawberry Jam days, and while I'm not an active member, I've found a piece of identity in this fandom. However I think we're posed with a curious situation: how do we discuss this mid period of the band? I think in the early days it was extremely easy, because we were watching an mythic narrative unfold before our very eyes. Weird-o experimental pop/rock band defies all odds and ascends to become indie darlings and more popular than we could have ever imagined such an aesthetic to be.

Now, after the peak of this particular narrative's ascent, I often sense that we long for each new song the band makes to somehow tap back into the thrill of that old narrative, only to disappointed that it does not return us back into the roller coaster ride we were on. Back in those days, the sense was that these guys kept getting better and better, and in turn their releases kept getting higher and higher in fidelity. But with MPP, the fidelity peaked, the pop sensibilities peaked, and the boys arrived as masters of their crafts. That narrative is over.

I guess all I'm advocating for is attempting to find other modes of discourse for this mid period. I'm annoying in that I don't generally believe in the terms 'good' and 'bad' as far as music goes. This isn't to say that I don't think certain songs are more successful than others (I just made a post pertaining to this in the Defeat thread) but I think the most satisfying discourse around these subjects revolves around trying to identify what the aesthetic intention was, and then assessing whether or not the artist successfully achieved that intention.

TLDR: seriously what is the point of music??

[Avey Tane]

wrote:

“Coming in at an exhausting 7,000 years long, music is weighed down by a few too many mid-tempo tunes, most notably ‘Liebesträume No. 3 In A-Flat’ by Franz Liszt and ‘Closing Time’ by ’90s alt-rock group Semisonic,” Schreiber wrote. “In the end, though music can be brilliant at times, the whole medium comes off as derivative of Pavement.”

https://www.theonion.com/pitchfork-give ... 1819569318

[andthephantom]

The Point of each new AC project, for me, is that it sounds completely new and foreign and yet still sounds like only AC could have created it. That's a tough bar, but a bar that AC clears more often than any other group I follow. So: high volume, with quite a few misses, and a lot of brilliant hits.

Somebody a bit back said Vampire Tongues sounded like a 7s outtake. I can see that, and I kinda sorta agree. But, basically, that comment just meant the song didn't sound especially new. I get the sense that this exploratory component of the band is what keeps a lot of us on here coming back.

Take Tangerine Reef . . . when folks just did their album rankings, it came in pretty universally low (lol most folks didn't even bother to rank The Inspection!). But, damn, TR sounds unlike anything else I've heard anybody make, including AC before/after. I love that it exists, and I love that I can enter that immersive watery feel any time. Where does it rank for me? Toward the bottom. But it was risky and new and somehow made sense.

Then, one thing that keeps me interested in them, is comparing why certain of their project click for me in ways that are different than others on this board. I'd pick PW over ChZ every single day, though both are kinda AC maximalism in similar ways, and I get the sense that this is a minority opinion.

Sorry - meandering here. But I've been enjoying this post-Vampire Tongues thread.

[hewasbeingstinky]

Really appreciate that thought and the phantom! I agree, it seems like a big part of the narrative appeal of AC is seeing if they can continue combining sounds in novel and exciting ways. Through the lens I can def appreciate some of the criticisms of Vampire Tongues. I’m curious what y'all think are the aspects that are novel, and the aspects that are not? For me the retread aspects are:
- The maximalism, it’s a mode I particularly want Dave to move away from. Cows in some way felt like the first step away from the wonky wall of sound but 7s and now this feel like more of that thread.
- The Funhouse sensibility, particularly the chordal harmonies. I appreciate Dave doing these cut and paste chord progressions but there’s an ambiguous logic to them that I wish he would move away from.


The things that feel novel to me about this:
- The presentation of Avey and Noah on this song. I feel like part of the reason it’s fun to be into music and bands as a fan is that as much as ur listening to the music, ur paying attention to the way these groups are interacting socially with each other and the world. I think the move to have it billed as Avey Tate featuring Panda Bear is truly fascinating and I’m curious what ways this will change and grow their relationships as collaborators.
- Avey’s melodic phrasing honestly feels relatively new to me (though bears relation to his project with the Dead drummer).
- the way avey and pandas verses relate to each other is interesting too. I dug the thought that they were almost in their reverse roles, with Panda usually handling the sing songy and Avey handling the soulful pathos.


Anyway also appreciating the discussion! Curious to hear more thoughts.

[dansemanatee]

hewasbeingstinky wrote:

This is part of why I wanted to discuss the framing Dave introduced by asking what he learned from his old friend Noah. I think there's potentially interesting discourse to uncover from this line of questioning maybe? Was that statement about form? Is he learning about melody and lyric writing by leaving the space open for Noah? Was this statement simply an off the cuff cute sentiment written for press release?

?

That quote from the domino website resonated with me a lot, I feel like when I make music with others you definitely do learn from each other but it's in a more abstract way that I have a really hard time articulating. There's definitely the more tangible technical aspects, picking up on what other people are doing and whatnot, but a lot of it seems more unconscious to me. I'm feeling kind of loopy tonight and I wish I had something with more substance to contribute because this discussion is really interesting to me.

[nothingmastered]

if any music is pointless then all music is.

tangerine reef arguably has more of a point than fireworks since it was explicitly attempting to raise awareness and money for some real world apocalyptic shit going on.

[Cooper]

nothingmastered wrote:

if any music is pointless then all music is.

tangerine reef arguably has more of a point than fireworks since it was explicitly attempting to raise awareness and money for some real world apocalyptic shit going on.

I would say the point of music is the experience of musical enjoyment (in the form of reading, feeling, and interpreting the emotional communication of the artist), which is a subjective phenomena that wouldn’t be worth defining any further I reckon, and insofar that a song does not produce this effect its “point” has failed to come across. If just one person, including the artist, can appreciate the point of a piece of music then it is not necessarily a failure as a work of art

?

[Alcohol]

I hate music. It’s got too many notes.

[augustjsmith]

Music doesn't need a point. Some of the best art is pointless.

[Fovrodi]

wrote:

Avey: why do you go to the beach? Why do you watch TV? For some reason for us its incredibley appealing and fun to put sounds on tape and to sit around coming up with melodies and listen and play, is that so hard to believe? Weve loved doing it since we were atleast fourteen and it still hasnt become dull. Im sure even if we werent getting any money wed still be sitting around (in our parents basement hehehehe) listening to each others jams. Its also nice to feel like youre atleast doing somthing positive (no matter how small of a thing it is) and communicating with a larger community somehow. Im not often preachy but think about the world without music. I bet even the people who say they dont really have time for music would notice it was gone. It would suck thats for sure. Its probably hard to imagine but there was a time in this part of the world when people played music for free for each other and really just because it was part of a day to day way of living and most likely everyone took the time to listen. It may have been a long long long ass time ago but it happened

[Cooper]

augustjsmith wrote:

Music doesn't need a point. Some of the best art is pointless.

How can something be pointless? Especially if it was made by someone.. hmm

[r_o_s_s]

[roopn]

Hahahaha

[scrambledgreggs]

[hewasbeingstinky]

Lmaoo haven’t watched that movie since I was a kid but I still get those songs stuck in my head all the time.

Re: whether or not music has points—sometimes I wonder about what it means to grant purpose or utility to art in general. It makes it all very mechanical. “The purpose of this song is to achieve this feeling, and if it succeeds it has fulfilled its purpose,” you know what I mean? I think art tends to be more slippery than mechanistic, more alive and evasive of such clear narratives.

I also wonder what makes something an artistic failure if we take purpose out of it? Obviously being subjective one person’s trash can always be another’s treasure. So what is it in us that decides “this one didn’t work?”

With music I think there is always a slight parasocial thing. I think we assess music by how well it hears us, in a way. When I first heard Sung Tongs, I felt a profound sense of being seen by that music. In the case of Vampire Tongues, I don’t necessarily feel the same sense of validation from the music, it feels less like my soul. Does that make it a failure to me? Or is it an interesting knick knack that I’ll hold for a second before buying something else in the Animal Collective jewelry store?

I haven’t really paid attention to the lyrics, other than Panda’s “it’s a regiment” which is like the most Panda lyric in the world lol. Who do you reckon the vampire tongues are that we should beware of? lol is it us??? Jkjk unless…

[jfw7]

"vampire tongues" is about avey leaving the band

[augustjsmith]

Cooper wrote:

augustjsmith wrote:

Music doesn't need a point. Some of the best art is pointless.

How can something be pointless? Especially if it was made by someone.. hmm

I'm not sure. This discussion makes me imagine someone standing in front of a Rothko saying, "What's the point?" It's simply the wrong question to ask.

[rohcti]

Fovrodi wrote:

wrote:

Avey: why do you go to the beach? Why do you watch TV? For some reason for us its incredibley appealing and fun to put sounds on tape and to sit around coming up with melodies and listen and play, is that so hard to believe? Weve loved doing it since we were atleast fourteen and it still hasnt become dull. Im sure even if we werent getting any money wed still be sitting around (in our parents basement hehehehe) listening to each others jams.

This makes me so happy

[Cooper]

hewasbeingstinky wrote:

Lmaoo haven’t watched that movie since I was a kid but I still get those songs stuck in my head all the time.

Re: whether or not music has points—sometimes I wonder about what it means to grant purpose or utility to art in general. It makes it all very mechanical. “The purpose of this song is to achieve this feeling, and if it succeeds it has fulfilled its purpose,” you know what I mean? I think art tends to be more slippery than mechanistic, more alive and evasive of such clear narratives.

I also wonder what makes something an artistic failure if we take purpose out of it? Obviously being subjective one person’s trash can always be another’s treasure. So what is it in us that decides “this one didn’t work?”

With music I think there is always a slight parasocial thing. I think we assess music by how well it hears us, in a way. When I first heard Sung Tongs, I felt a profound sense of being seen by that music. In the case of Vampire Tongues, I don’t necessarily feel the same sense of validation from the music, it feels less like my soul. Does that make it a failure to me? Or is it an interesting knick knack that I’ll hold for a second before buying something else in the Animal Collective jewelry store?

I haven’t really paid attention to the lyrics, other than Panda’s “it’s a regiment” which is like the most Panda lyric in the world lol. Who do you reckon the vampire tongues are that we should beware of? lol is it us??? Jkjk unless…

The point is not something utilitarian that the artist dictates… it’s the particular instantiation of beauty being channeled.. it’s the hidden agenda of unseen gods and daemons

Vampire tongues is definitely about us, AC’s hateful and impossible to please fans heheh

[Fovrodi]

Avey on IG

wrote:

Flex your imagination and keep creating out there! Keep the Vampire Tongues away from your creative juices. More creations less destructions. Enjoy!

Also

wrote:

Avey: [Liking a band is] an emotional (or personal) connection you have to them and ultimately i dont believe any one of you can explain this phenomenon atleast i cant. Its not concepts that make you like them and i dont believe its concepts that make you dislike them either.

[...]Maybe people on this forum arent being so drastic but ive seen other forums and friends have told me about things people are saying. Its just very strange to me that people can be so negative about us putting a record out that we actually like. Especially when it concerns someone who has put alot of work into records they obviously do like alot. It makes me feel like this kind of respect only comes from getting what you want and that kind of respect is disposable when disapointment comes along. Im still not going to let it affect the kinds of records im going to make. I understand if you dont respect me cause i made a record you dont like but i dont understand you calling me an asshole for not releasing a record you wanted.

[pox]

videogame and film/tv companies over the last 15 years or so have set the precedent that fan demands have a place in the creation of art, and given impressionable minds the false sense of ownership that leads to exactly the kind of behavior he's describing. plus internet culture at large having normalized hostility especially toward anyone who has a following. i can't believe anyone still wants to be a professional artist anymore considering all the money has been siphoned out and replaced with endless negativity from strangers, who understand neither how to engage with art nor how to behave around human beings.

re: music having a point and "artistic failure." from what i'm reading i think this is a needlessly limiting way of looking at it. art is cool because it has no defined parameters. it exists to inspire feelings. those feelings emerge and grow inside your own brain, reflecting whatever else is in there as much as its own origins. sorting it into good or bad, success or failure, is sometimes fun but only meaningful to the extent that it inspires further feelings and growth. evaluating art in terms of whether it succeeds or not, i see as a red flag usually. it feels like rushing to the end of a conversation that isn't supposed to end. to that point, theres no way this song can be declared a failure if it inspired a few people to earnestly try to articulate the inarticulable nature of how we relate to art. provoking meaningful thought and discussion of any kind is a pretty good outcome whether intended by the artist or not.