Collected Animals

Still not sure what it means for focaccia to be treated like it's jade..

Treating disposable 'art' like colorful bread as if it was some rare or precious stone? If I had to guess.

edit: could also go the other way, what with bread being food obv and jade being such an item of vanity.

Just got the fresh download from domino

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 love the Cherokee lyrics. Feel like he hasn't been that verbose and specific since like Fireworks or Lion maybe. Its a deeper On a Highway

Yeh, its totally Fireworks meets On A Highway

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

The meaning/messages I'm getting from each Skiff:

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.

Got my preorder today. On side b right now! Very spacious so far. Gatefold is sweet

love your takeaways fox!

the idea of new songs on the next tour is wild. I might have to disappear from CA when it starts until the First Ave show. go in blind.

Still not sure what it means for focaccia to be treated like it's jade..

On a tour. Some country where bread was treated as something precious in a marketplace

CHEROKEE

THEY DID IT

Are the lyrics included with the vinyl? They usually don't do that. I am pretty excited to dig into the lyrics tomorrow. Specifically Cherokee.

Any song in particular yall are excited to decode and decipher?

^last page someone posted a website that has all the lyrics already bout to do my second listen and read along!

Still nothing from Bandcamp and it's 1:11am... Sigh..

Are the lyrics included with the vinyl? They usually don't do that. I am pretty excited to dig into the lyrics tomorrow. Specifically Cherokee.

Any song in particular yall are excited to decode and decipher?

see my post above, probably WGB is the one that is the most revelatory as far as me suddenly realising what I think its about

Hellomark wrote:

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.

lol

Still nothing from Bandcamp and it's 1:11am... Sigh..

and thats a bummer... shouldn't you just... you know...

some random first listen thoughts:

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

alright time for round 2

lol

AmadeooedamA wrote:

Still nothing from Bandcamp and it's 1:11am... Sigh..

and thats a bummer... shouldn't you just... you know...

Yep yep yep getting there lol

“And the minutes can’t make up their mind / just how long they’d like to be” is one of those classic AnCo lyrics. Gonna be one of my new favorites

alllllriight the demoitis is fading on repeated listens, i think passerby is gonna be pretty damn sweet....

CHEROKEE

THEY DID IT

yes yes YES YESSSS

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

song (sun?) shuts my eyes
reminds me of the fight
to find the way

the way to love like a child

love how those two parts connect lyrically.

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.

Does a comprehensive compilation of the best of various versions of all the new live material exist?

i made a very unscientific one i can post what boots which tracks came from

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

cherokee and passerby are perfect

cant say anything else. the stoop that i love is fiending for meaning and there's nothing more to say.

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).

fragile is the perfect word to describe the ending! spot on

Shoot I set my VPN to Europe in hopes I could DL Time Skiffs from bandcamp, no dice

Cause you taught me to stand
And that splinters will rise
And they'll always come round round, round round

the lyrics to royal and desire are so good, goddamn deakin

i can't wait to ruin this album by listening to it 10,000 times

the lyrics to royal and desire are so good, goddamn deakin

he is their best songwriter sorry.

where's the lie

new panda bear interview with turn: http://turntokyo.com/features/animal-co ... interview/

in japanese but google translate handles it okayish

FAF wrote:

the lyrics to royal and desire are so good, goddamn deakin

he is their best songwriter sorry.

horrible take

new panda bear interview with turn: http://turntokyo.com/features/animal-co ... interview/

in japanese but google translate handles it okayish

He’s definitely saying Steely Dan influenced the album at the end, right? lol my translate changed it to “Steerly Dunn”