Still not sure what it means for focaccia to be treated like it's jade..
I think he's talking about seeing the extraordinary in the simple. Appreciating the little things and valuing them. Like, just fucking loving and appreciating a good focaccia. Treating it like gold. Because it is. Gold for your body.
I can't stop listening. First animal collective album since... I dont even know where you can just hear everything. I turn on dragon slayer and just can lose myself in the sound. Was just sitting and focusing in on the "SLAYERRR" during the second verse... This album BARES GIFTS
Slayer: Letting the anger/frustration out in healthy ways. Respectful disagreement. How can we express our big feelings on an issue and still find a common ground? Being passionate yet engaging in healthy debate and being open to new perspectives.
Car Keys: Trying to wrestle control over a situation and regain agency in life.
Prester: Recognising when a time/phase has passed and when it is time to move on and put something to bed.
Strung: Rolling with the punches and valuing what you have. The cyclical nature of time. Things collapse and rebuild; days come and go. Focus on gratitude, mindfulness, and acceptance. Everything and everyone is connected. Tap into that and you’ll feel much better about your place in the world.
Walker: Everyone has something to contribute and to teach you. Grief is hard but also an opportunity to take stock of what someone gave to you and how they should be celebrated.
Cherokee: Everyone is living their lives and travelling through all these little micro events. Tiny stories that pile up into mountains of learning and emotion and memory.
Passer-by: Taking what you can from the relationships that pass through your life. Better to have loved and lost etc.
WGB: Wrestling with our place in the universe. Time and space as flexible/non-linear. Existence as both vital and totally insignificant. Connection as the only way of surviving our insignificance.
Royal: Resilience, overcoming adversity. Finding healthy ways to cope and keep clinging to the good. Finding your strength and being honest with yourself. The enormous power of music to heal.
This might be becoming the greatest of all AC albums... which would make it my greatest album of all time. Such an incredible, deeply moving piece of music. An absolutely celestial, divine sonic gift that connects emotionally in such an authentic, human way.
Still not sure what it means for focaccia to be treated like it's jade..
I think he's talking about seeing the extraordinary in the simple. Appreciating the little things and valuing them. Like, just fucking loving and appreciating a good focaccia. Treating it like gold. Because it is. Gold for your body.
First of all, your whole breakdown was DOPE, but this in particular is enlightening cause Focaccia is amazing and now want a breakfast sandwich on focaccia but REALLY look at it for a bit before I chow down like I'm in a Safdie Brothers movie about a Deli owner called Unsliced Gems.
i said some weeks ago that as long as they nailed at least one of cherokee, passerby, and royal, i would be very satisfied with the album. well count me satisfied because i am absolutely ecstatic about cherokee. there are a couple of bits i would have liked to be slightly higher in the mix, but this version of cherokee really highlights the coolest aspects of its vibe. it's murky, groovy, and rich. feels like it is taking you on a journey, like you're a passenger going along for the ride on a seedy roadtrip where you don't know the driver that well, the car could break down any second, and you don't exactly know where he's taking you but the driver seems psyched to show you the sights and sounds, and all of this makes you both excited and uneasy. the image it evokes in my mind is like a 1920's black and white cartoon animation of some sinister ancient steam locomotive bopping up and down cartoonishly as it slowly chugs through some murky swamp, vines hanging from trees that block the light from getting through, animals you can't quite catch a glimpse of scurrying out of sight. another side of the coin of the imagery "down there" evokes for me, approached from a different perspective. while on paper it isn't the same as the 2019 version, it somehow hits the exact same spot for me just like i wanted it. so over the moon about this one
royal is royal, what is to be said? absolutely beautiful, all that i had hoped for. a masterpiece like that cannot be fumbled
passerby i'm gonna have to give a few more listens but it simply doesn't match the huge, dreamy, ethereal beauty that washes over you in the climax of the 2019 version. i think it's pretty cool in its own right, they went for something a little more straightforward and subtle, but for me it's like switching out gorgeous for pretty. the emotion it evokes is correspondingly more understated. maybe it'll click after a few more listens but it feels like they knew they could get an easy double by doing the song this way rather than going for the home run by making it massive. i'm fine without the autotune, but i really miss avey's little oooOOOoOOooo doo doo doo doo doo being the cherry on top at the end. yes, it is still there, but i feel like it should be the focal point of that moment and instead panda has vocals over the top of them, feels like someone walking in front of your tv at the exact moment the best part is happening
last thought: slightly slowing down car keys really ruins precisely what i liked about it, how tight and proggy it sounded. ah well, was never too attached to that one anyway
back in the day i spent so long trying to wrack my brain to decipher these particular lyrics from royal, and finally seeing them now i'm just like damn, no wonder i never got em lol:
"Now I’m washed in Bywater rain
These water oaks and the train"
"Or think you feign insane for sane’s sake"
the royal lyrics are just so good too damn, there's a certain meditative, introspective quality that is exactly what i love about sleep cycle, feels like a continuation of that. here's some my interpretation of this short passage from royal which you can extrapolate to the overall theme of the song:
And what’s this lie that you place before the birth of your world?
(why do you idealize time periods from before you were born? there were problems then too)
Just try living now, now now, now
(just appreciate the time you were born and live in the present moment)
Decide I’m one and I sing
(decide i'm one with the universe/present moment and rejoice in that, put good back out into the world)
Inside I’m still as I move, now forget all that down, down, down, down
(i meditate and become inwardly quiet as i move through this hectic life, forgetting the "down down" spiral of things getting worse)
also it's crazy just how far we've come, how long these songs have gestated. time skiffs ended and my 2019 tour compilation album came on immediately after with fast paced autotuned kings and i'm just like damn dude, time
Still not sure what it means for focaccia to be treated like it's jade..
Probably talking about how when you're traveling on tour, food can be scarce. So maybe he was eating a lot of focaccia, and in comparison of all the shittier rest stop food, it was precious like jade.
there's a great compilation of the best versions of all the 2019 jams, i remember getting it from a link on the AC subreddit, i remember i searched for it and found it and redownloaded it deep into 2020 so it's prob still there on the subreddit if you search. but i'd say pretty definitively prester, dragon, royal, stride, defeat and broke all got significantly better on the 2021 tour, but 2019 passerby and cherokee are worlds better than 2021 tour. i like 2019 kings better too. car keys and gem and i i don't think changed too much between tours. bolder is a matter of preference, i like the 2019 version. walker was only 2019 and sea of light and magicians were only 2021. that about sums it up
alllllriight the demoitis is fading on repeated listens, i think passerby is gonna be pretty damn sweet....
It's been wild hearing people's reactions to this song specifically. Passer-by was not on my radar from the boots, which is why I think the album version hit me so hard. It starts off so big and ends so fragile. Makes me kind of want to hold it in my arms (but not too long).
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