Collected Animals

7s feels like a wonderfully sunny day turning cloudy and getting drenched by a tropical thunderstorm in neurons. CSRS feels like walking through a cold, windy night after being soaked by the rain.

Holy shit this is perfect

Wind slows on my clothes,
wind slows, there I blows

is my fav album closing sequence in forever. Sister to Acid Wash

I headbang to clouds' main riff

Yeah this album a grower. Felt so inconsistent on first few listens but I think of it more of a journey through isolation rather than a record with a “world” you occupy like MPP.

Have been playing this a lot lately and I really enjoy it from front to back. The three sections feel like they sit together more comfortably now. I can see why people are put off by the first three tracks but they contain some of Avey’s catchiest melodies and I find them pretty irresistible.

First three songs are his best since eucalyptus…I was tuned out of CA during the release so I’m shocked to learn some people don’t like them! The Musical especially. beautiful and groovy.

Yeh, someone was complaining about the way The Musical finishes the other day. I really love that classic Avey composition technique of the slowed down final verse thing. Works really well on The Musical for me. One more chance to really savour that sweet melody.

Me was complaining. I love everything else about this album and don’t even really mind that technique itself but combined with the rest of the Musical into an overall package I just cannot hang. Extra weird because I was super into it on first listen.

Though I do love this album very much!! I would point to Hey Bog through to CSRS.First two songs are lovely too but do read as the light ramp up

The outro to The Musical feels pretty essential to me in preparing the album to move into Hey Bog - slowing down the bright poppy sounds and moving into the darker and more deliberate middle part.

I think I love everything on this album besides Lips at Night, which I still think is good regardless. The Musical, Hey Bog, Sweeper's Grin and Neurons I find myself listening to regularly!

I really dig most of this record — sometimes the first three tracks can be a little too twee or cloying but also when i'm in the mood they are fantastic little gems that show how good of a pop songwriter avey naturally is.

buuuuuut, the real wrench in my enjoyment of this record is that I wish it was 7 hey bogs. i love how Eucalyptus, Down There, and Cows (+Birds ep) create these very consistent worlds, and this one is closer to grab bag of really differing styles of writing. which is cool! but if it was all in that weird swamp techno folk of hey bog, it would be one of my favorite things ever.

The more I listen, the more this sounds like a compilation of outtakes from Down There to Cows.

I mean yeah I think he might've been in that sort of retrospective mood when he was writing them, especially as it happened during the pandemic.

Invisible Darlings is Slasher Flicks era, Lips is MotW/Eucalyptus, Musical is Cows/CHz adjacent, Hey Bog is structurally looking at Feels era songwriting and Sweeper's is looking all the way back to Sung Tongs but with the propulsion of a lot of his solo work. Neurons and CSRS are more forward-looking though I can draw a line between them and Cows/Birds for sure. For a record we sort of vaguely knew was coming but was still announced out of nowhere with no live demoing aside from Bog I can accept that.

I totally am on board with him doing whatever he likes. It's not my favourite album but I'm grateful there are a couple which I really love.

yeah we are in a good era where even if it's not always super cohesive artistic statements like the mid-00s there are usually 3-4 tracks per project that i really cherish

Invisible darlings being about the small niceties we afford strangers makes me cry every time I think about it long enough

I'm glad we have this album, it was such a cozy little treat in the dead of winter

I wonder if and how anyone's opinion on 7s would be different if we didn't know that IIN was in the pipeline the whole time. At least for me, ever since TS was announced I've been waiting for them to also drop the remaining AC songs they've been playing live. And every release since then has sort of hit a feeling of "okay nice, but where's time skiffs 2?".
As much as I enjoy reset and 7s, all the panda collabs and that deakin remix of pantha du prince, it's hard to shake the feeling that I've been (subconsciously) viewing all of that as mere holdovers until IIN.
On the other hand, maybe IIN will be so good that it would have overshadowed any release that came afterwards anyways and it was better to have these solo releases in between.

i think there is definitely an underlying 'this will tide me over' aspect.

although i've actually grown to enjoy 7s a lot more over the last couple of weeks because i'm so desperate to revel in any AC magic that i can. it has helped me really uncover the album and give it the time it deserved.

reset is so immediately gratifying that i really falls into a whole different category.

listened to this again after a long break to hype up for IIN and liked it more than the first few times when it came out, especially Hey Bog which I think finally clicked for me this time

I'd still rate the album as a solid 4/5 though. nothing mindblowing though Sweeper's is one of the better tracks to come out this year

Tuning-in now after a helluva hiatus… “Hey Bog” into “Sweeper’s Grin”… GMAFB. Dave is not of this planet..

the second half is where he really shines

the second half is where he really shines

agreed, sweepers/neurons/cloud back to back is insane. three of his best songs ever.

I asked on instagram if this was another 7s tour or if he was touring new songs. He saw but didnt respond. Hoping theres more acoustic guitar this tour and hoping for a batch of new songs. I caught 3 7s shows last tour and would be a little bummed if hes just doing that again.

I wonder what's going on with that Gator Pools project

I don't even think I've heard a full rip of Let's Get Swampy yet. The radio versions just fade out after a few minutes. Does anyone have the actual record?

Where is the radio rip floating about?

from the gator pools thread

the radio archive files are still hosted, you can hear those below. as previously mentioned, it was split across two programs so it's at the end of the first link, start of the second.

Dec 12th - show 1 (at 1:55:25)
Dec 12th - show 2 (continues playing under the DJ for like 2 minutes)

anyone want to stitch these together? or does anyone have a vinyl rip?

hey bog is like Thom Yorke's The Motherlode