[awesome]

going back through the reviews so far, 5 of 6 include a beach boys and/or brian wilson reference....... watch this space

[Hellomark]

Damn, page 129... sorry guys, looks like we're never hearing this thing now.

[scrambledgreggs]

we better get this to page 320 fast for that hq freebird

[zak]

lol

[Stan]

Hehe

[Slippi's Applesauce]

I don't think this was posted, from a reddit thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimalCollecti ... ollective/):

I guess since the review embargo is listed I can post my thoughts on the album. My thoughts when I first listened to it is that it really sounds like they enjoyed making it. There's a good vibe throughout. I think this review is spot on with the "stop over" sentiment, it's not a life changing album or something that's going to change the music world or win them a bunch of new fans imo, but it also doesn't feel like they set out to do that either. I do think Prester John is by far the best song on the record, though Cherokee also rules and Royal & Desire is beautiful and might actually be my favorite track on there. Overall for me personally I'd put it below ST/Feels/SJ/MPP but above the last two records.

[Dalehp]

Slippi's Applesauce wrote:

I don't think this was posted, from a reddit thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimalCollecti ... ollective/):

I guess since the review embargo is listed I can post my thoughts on the album. My thoughts when I first listened to it is that it really sounds like they enjoyed making it. There's a good vibe throughout. I think this review is spot on with the "stop over" sentiment, it's not a life changing album or something that's going to change the music world or win them a bunch of new fans imo, but it also doesn't feel like they set out to do that either. I do think Prester John is by far the best song on the record, though Cherokee also rules and Royal & Desire is beautiful and might actually be my favorite track on there. Overall for me personally I'd put it below ST/Feels/SJ/MPP but above the last two records.

So Prester John is by far the best track on there and in other news Royal and Desire might just be their favourite track on there? Got it.

[BORCHENKO??]

Well obviously he means that PJ is objectively the best song and Royal is subjectively the best song

[wilandhugs]

Dalehp wrote:

Slippi's Applesauce wrote:

I don't think this was posted, from a reddit thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimalCollecti ... ollective/):

I guess since the review embargo is listed I can post my thoughts on the album. My thoughts when I first listened to it is that it really sounds like they enjoyed making it. There's a good vibe throughout. I think this review is spot on with the "stop over" sentiment, it's not a life changing album or something that's going to change the music world or win them a bunch of new fans imo, but it also doesn't feel like they set out to do that either. I do think Prester John is by far the best song on the record, though Cherokee also rules and Royal & Desire is beautiful and might actually be my favorite track on there. Overall for me personally I'd put it below ST/Feels/SJ/MPP but above the last two records.

So Prester John is by far the best track on there and in other news Royal and Desire might just be their favourite track on there? Got it.

I mean I love PJ but I totally prefer Walker and SWE, even with their suite, so yeah this person's 2 cents are worthless to me too

Reviewers gonna review

[BORCHENKO??]

Any review of TS that doesnt include a link to the full album download is worthless

[unpopular]

lhtd wrote:

opposite field wrote:

the last decade as a "wilderness period"

"what am i gonna do? go into the forest until i can't remember my name"

in some crucial ways some of the bands lyrics and themes seem to anticipate their future. call them augur artists. "defeat" and the conference of birds seemingly predicting the pandemic, "fall be kind" preceding their fall from indie grace, the aforementioned amanita lyric describing the wilderness metaphor and harkening the dismemberment/re-membering of subject/object that stories through their movement from pre-merriweather (subjectivity immersed outside of itself) to merriweather (harmony of preobjective being with a true subject) to chz (agony of subjectivism) to painting with (postmodern objectivity, if you will; the lack of subject) to now time skiffs (the arrival to something like the "human, all-too-human" where the band doesn't play the human animal––they are their humanness––and the subjectivity of their early years are sublated or maybe just introjected; integrated into their songs as such).

anyway, i agree irony has never been a hallmark of the band. painting with probably plays with irony more than any of their records, but it's also their most critical and self-reflective record. irony just seems like a projection from popular music criticism, as is their "childlike naivety" a failure to keep listening with the band past their initial early years; a myth of development, of the american puer. let them grow up and let spirit vanish so it may return.

great post, wow

[captainhowdy]

So is this their best kept secret by this point or what?

[conswaygo]

captainhowdy wrote:

So is this their best kept secret by this point or what?

Their biggest secret is that Time Skiffs 2 will feature all the songs from TS1 reworked in a Ska style.

Defeat will be released as an NFT.

[WinterCityWalks]

there were two potential timelines, one where they nerf studio Cherokee or one where the autotune stays but they sell Hollinndagain as an NFT

[BORCHENKO??]

If they sold 300 unique hollindagain NFTs I wouldn't even be mad

[zak]

studio cherokee has autotune

[ingenue]

opposite field wrote:

New review from Steven Hyden. Lots of preamble but the music section is very positive.

https://uproxx.com/indie/animal-collect ... fs-review/

“Did you do this on purpose? Are you intentionally trying to chase most of your audience away? And Lennox said ‘no’ in several different ways. But I didn’t believe him then, and I’m not sure I believe him now.”

This gets my goat. The idea that the artist doesn’t know what he/she is doing, that the art is intentionally difficult, that “no one can possibly like this.” It’s the same kind of thinking that has polarized our politics. A person so enshrined in his/her own ego he can’t understand how others have the ability to think for themselves, and that—gasp!—doing so might lead them elsewhere.

[fernforested]

relistening to desert daze earlier today and it’s almost comical how fucking fast they used to play gemini and broke zodiac — the new slower versions really are an improvement to my ears . . . those pre pandemic days life was fast and wild and now i take things in much slower maybe they do too

[Slippi's Applesauce]

what a beautiful way to put it. agreed on going back and listening to a lot of the 2019 stuff. I'd like to add that it all feels so empty looking back on it, especially Gem and I, Strangers, Cherokee, Walker, Bolder, Royal and Desire, Stride Rite, and even Car Keys (although I do sometimes miss the old descending bass line- everything else is an improvement though!).

I feel like Noah really beefed up his drum playing during 2020, turning tracks like Gem and I, Dragon Slayer, and Car Keys into monsters.

[Hellomark]

That uproxx piece wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it might be. Re:irony in their music, it seemed like he was only citing lazy commentary at the time, his final point seemed to refute that idea pretty well. It's funny, I was only 14 in 2009, spending probably way too much time reading all that AC discourse and hype. Over the past couple years I've definitely developed a bit of nostalgia for that time, but it's also good to be reminded just how dumb and bad faith a lot of that old discussion was. AC as "unlistenable noise" is something I'll never be able to wrap my mind around.

And regarding that Reddit comment above, I'm just happy they said that Cherokee rules haha. If, on the day the single was released, you told me that Prester was going to be largely thought of as one of the best tracks on the album, I would have been a little disappointed. But if you told me that while we only had the boots, I would have been a mix of hyped and unsurprised. Funny how that works. It's partially due to an initial lukewarm reaction I had with the Prester single (I love it now, but I think the softer vocals had to take some time to grow on me) but also part of it is probably just being bummed at the idea that I would have heard a major album highlight before the rest of it. It's all a bit silly though. As I've said a million times, I'm pretty confident that Cherokee will be my favorite of the bunch.

[tdegenaro]

awesome wrote:

the freebird was the friends we made along the way

spit out my drink and fucking thrashed my laptop you mother fuckers owe me a computer and anco, you mother fuckers owe me a freebird

[Slothrope]

Don't forget to tune in, Animal Collective in the listening chair in like, 2 minutes on BBC 3, said they're playing "something" from time skiffs! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_three

[tdegenaro]

Hellomark wrote:

That uproxx piece wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it might be. Re:irony in their music, it seemed like he was only citing lazy commentary at the time, his final point seemed to refute that idea pretty well.... it's also good to be reminded just how dumb and bad faith a lot of that old discussion was. AC as "unlistenable noise" is something I'll never be able to wrap my mind around.

Hellomark is on the money here, i feel vaguely obligated to defend Hyden because his podcast is the only thing that regularly brings me joy and because, having been in college and very online for the height of the "hipster zeitgeist" and very nostalgic for how easy (and stupid) life was then, as opposed to how complex (and stupid) life is now, i'm having a very easy time connecting with what i believe hyden to be saying.

wrote:

Animal Collective’s music has forever sounded to my ears like an attempt to move beyond conventional rock song structures in order to express pure and unfettered emotion, like peeling away the skin, muscles, and nervous system from the human body to expose the raw, primal, beating heat underneath.

this is the key. i think, like hellomark says, that calling them hipster music was a lazy misunderstanding of what the band was up to. we know that, of course, but its nice to see a pretty mainstream music writer say this:

wrote:

What it does not resemble, however, is anything remotely “hipster.” Even back in 2009 ... they were too earnest for that tag. Rather, they are like their namesake: wild, guileless, and free.

I think too, especially because i am bored and have listened to every possible boot featuring these songs four times and need a break before going four more times before friday (or, god willing, when domino dispatches my lps early) the context of the hipster zeitgeist is tied directly up into the history of this band. i don't think they're defined by it and i don't necessarily see anything they've done (especially chz) as a response to that: but for us, for me anyway, those parallel narratives on p4k or in "the culture" can't decouple from the anco universe. for me, that's seasoning, and all together, it makes quite a delicious meal.

i'd riff more on this wrt bridge to quiet, as ppl discussed several pages ago, is inseparable from like the shittiest part of the pandemic, or for me how i ruined tangerine reefs writing a grad school paper on it. time and place, for a band like animal collective, is part of the experience.

[conswaygo]

Slothrope wrote:

Don't forget to tune in, Animal Collective in the listening chair in like, 2 minutes on BBC 3, said they're playing "something" from time skiffs! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_three

Hoping it's not just SWE. Might record it just in case.

[Slothrope]

Right now, it seems like it's just strung lol. Maybe there'll be a surprise but I doubt it

[Allatrobles]

Slothrope wrote:

Don't forget to tune in, Animal Collective in the listening chair in like, 2 minutes on BBC 3, said they're playing "something" from time skiffs! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_three

Listening now. They currently playing Strung.

Edit: love the song Geo chose. I watch that old SJ era Malta video constantly and that song really reminds me of Geo beginning Cuckoo Cuckoo for that show. Opens my mind to his whole approach to SJ.

[kafkaesque]

lhtd wrote:

opposite field wrote:

the last decade as a "wilderness period"

"what am i gonna do? go into the forest until i can't remember my name"

in some crucial ways some of the bands lyrics and themes seem to anticipate their future. call them augur artists. "defeat" and the conference of birds seemingly predicting the pandemic, "fall be kind" preceding their fall from indie grace, the aforementioned amanita lyric describing the wilderness metaphor and harkening the dismemberment/re-membering of subject/object that stories through their movement from pre-merriweather (subjectivity immersed outside of itself) to merriweather (harmony of preobjective being with a true subject) to chz (agony of subjectivism) to painting with (postmodern objectivity, if you will; the lack of subject) to now time skiffs (the arrival to something like the "human, all-too-human" where the band doesn't play the human animal––they are their humanness––and the subjectivity of their early years are sublated or maybe just introjected; integrated into their songs as such).

anyway, i agree irony has never been a hallmark of the band. painting with probably plays with irony more than any of their records, but it's also their most critical and self-reflective record. irony just seems like a projection from popular music criticism, as is their "childlike naivety" a failure to keep listening with the band past their initial early years; a myth of development, of the american puer. let them grow up and let spirit vanish so it may return.

ngl i went to an ivy league school and most of this flew by me... guess my brain has rotted from all the adult-life depression and anxiety... or my philosophy just isn't there. can understand the terms in isolation but don't necessarily resonate with how they correspond to each album. would love some further explanation if you get the chance for simpletons like myself

[stash]

Slothrope wrote:

Don't forget to tune in, Animal Collective in the listening chair in like, 2 minutes on BBC 3, said they're playing "something" from time skiffs! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_three

i read that klf album was recorded in 1 take in a warehouse with all the gear laid out on a table in the middle of the warehouse like on some kinda rube goldberg type shit

[floats]

+1 for hearing more of lhtd's thoughts on AC philosophy. can't say I fully understand, but it was nice to read

[WinterCityWalks]

fernforested wrote:

relistening to desert daze earlier today and it’s almost comical how fucking fast they used to play gemini and broke zodiac — the new slower versions really are an improvement to my ears . . . those pre pandemic days life was fast and wild and now i take things in much slower maybe they do too

'19 Broke had this indescribable aura around it, just pure unironic bliss. '21 live is absolutely heavenly though and draws out the melodies in a way that works way better

[fernforested]

it’s true that those versions of those songs had such a wild vibe to them — especially as someone who skipped music box — seeing them play bass guitar and jazz drums and stuff was so crazy. prester john sounded almost like r&b to me

[Hash]

BORCHENKO?? wrote:

Well obviously he means that PJ is objectively the best song and Royal is subjectively the best song

okay but... what does that mean though

[unrecordednight]

1 week

[Hellomark]

Very possibly a little less than that, feel like it will find its way online by at least Thursday.

[zarya]

Fingers crossing Domino will send out my preorder relatively soon. I've always gotten AnCo records pretty early. I need it...

[BORCHENKO??]

Hash wrote:

BORCHENKO?? wrote:

Well obviously he means that PJ is objectively the best song and Royal is subjectively the best song

okay but... what does that mean though

You don't know?

[dio]

lmao dude doesn't understand concept of subjectivity and objectivity and how literally all of us are capable of channeling objective, universal criticism (not kidding actually)

Prester John def got first-singled pretty hard. 4-5 months ago it was one of the ones I was most excited for and it seems so right that it was the first single because its what I really wanted to happen... its what I wanted people to hear of AC after so long. And I'd share the P4K video of it that someone uploaded to Vimeo to softer-core ANCO fan friends.

And its good ol trusty now, I still love it, but its not sexy and super fresh like SJW or even as novel as Walker (also barely listened to Walker boots) and is of course not exciting at ALL compared to literally all of the rest of the other 6 tracks.

But I'll love to hear Car Keys jangle on into it a week for now man, and it has aged well in its short life so far. Fuuuuuuuuck yes.

[coral lord]

tfw SWE gets autocorrected to SJW

[dio]

oh lmao lolllll. I love SJW, it's my favorite one.

[jerry wonder]

stash wrote:

Slothrope wrote:

Don't forget to tune in, Animal Collective in the listening chair in like, 2 minutes on BBC 3, said they're playing "something" from time skiffs! https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_three

i read that klf album was recorded in 1 take in a warehouse with all the gear laid out on a table in the middle of the warehouse like on some kinda rube goldberg type shit

which KLF record? such a fascinating band/conceptual art factory. I mean the gall to literally burn 1 million pounds....amazing