Collected Animals

Loch Raven has always been a track that stood out to me on Feels. While the rest of the record is fairly organic and round, Loch Raven has always felt artificial and pointy. It's really that high pitched "ding" that hovers above the entire song. As all of us know, early animal collective is full of high-pitched experimentation, some of it's really beautiful, but sometimes it can be ear piercing and just plain hurt. As the band evolved they seemed to move further and further away from such frequencies. By the time they produced Feels they'd already put out "Sung Tongs" and "Campfire Songs", two albums completely devoid of that high-pitched aesthetic. It sort of felt like that kind of sound was in Animal Collective's past.

I think that they saw this and wrote Loch Raven as an ode to their earlier work. It's the last song that they've produced that has that danse manatee-eqsue production to it, even the first piano notes of the song sound like they could have been plucked from spirit they've gone, spirit they've vanished. Personally, I think Loch Raven is the most beautiful Animal Collective song to incorporate high-pitched noises, it seems like they produced the greatest work they possibly could with that sort of production style and then abandoned it. If the Animal Collective discography was equated to a map of the United States their early work would inhabit new england, but Loch Raven would exist in the eastern most tip of Maine. They went as far as they could with it and realized they needed to stop. They didn't want to simply throw away that part of their past, so they created Loch Raven, therefore Loch Raven then exists as a dingy farewell.

Do you agree? Is this all just complete unfounded speculation? Am I an idiot ? You decide!

But regardless, let's appreciate Loch Raven as a unique highlight of Anco's discography.

(Sidenote if Anco ever wants to reissue all of their albums as a box set I have a great name for it. "Anco's Disco")

also i mean dingy like "ding dong" not dingy like an abandoned house.

Also I feel like "Throwin' the Round Ball" could be Loch Raven as a baby

This is a really great. I really love that track, and Feels is up there with Spirit and Merriweather as my favourite three AnCo albums.

My favourite bit is the bit straight after 'WAIT', that I always sing as 'gotta gotta chase you'.

"i'm feverin - oh you make me wanna
(turns into werewolf and attacks)"
has always been one of my favorite avey lyrics

i never realized until now that loch raven and playpen could be cousin songs they have completely different vibes but the hazy keyboard loops and dreamy repetition makes them seem similar to me. and both of them sound "serious" but that's not the right word... i guess they contrast something like kids on holiday where the vibe is more playful but it's still dreamy/repetitive.

and your idea that LR might be an ode to their early stuff could be true. i think it is most likely that avey or geo had that high pitched sound but didn't know how to incorporate into a song until writing feels, kind of how winter wonder land was a HCTI-era jam that they brought back for strawberry jam.

"loch raven" gets my vote for most beautiful and blissful AC song. it's my summer song

luckily everyone is getting this poll right

thats a hard poll tho, cuz like ya 'wait!' (didnt really know it was a word actually) but the beat on this is so infectious and ive heard other ppl say that. me and a friend used to sometimes randomly start tapping it at work cuz its like such a hook of a little simple rhythm.

nvr rlly thought of the sounds in this as especially high pitched... maybe when i first heard it.

but ya this is for sure for sure my fave feels song. and of course the magic of ac is i thought this was the one snoozer on the album the first few times i heard it, even preferred daffy duck to it for a while.

but this is kind of a desert island song... i could stay in the world/mood of this song for a looooooong time. sounds like total peace and calmness in reflecting on tiny beautiful things/stillness of a moment... clarity maybe or a slightly sad but still peaceful acceptance of the lack of ever having clarity/closure. smh

had never heard "playpen" before. thanks for sharing, cody. i'd agree about it being cousins.

This song brings an image of being in a crib as a baby with a mobile spinning above and parents cooing over you.

#1 gives me a similar intimate vibe as this song.

god this song is perfection

maybe the 2nd animal collective song i ever heard right after feels was released

every time i listen i just get the chills in the best way

hey did you guys know Loch Raven is a neighborhood in Baltimore?...

there's also a hospital on loch raven blvd., maybe one or more of the boys were born there and this is an homage to their baby place as well as their earlier music....

or maybe one of them had a girlfriend who lived in Loch Raven the neighborhood....

this is probably widely known stuff here but it's new to me

im a ding ding ding ding guy cause that put me into such a trance this one time

I'm an oo ooo oo oo ooo ooo budumbudum guy myself. Cool, didn't know it was a neighborhood in bmore. song is precious and beautiful

I think it is named after the Loch Raven reservoir in Baltimore
but it could be that too/instead

Their third best song ever

i always loved the contrast between the very naturalistic piano and the digital high pitch sheen that rides over the entire song

Song always reminds me of that one video of the 70 year old guy in SF trying pot for the first time after getting a medical reccommendation and then walking around the Presidio stoned as shit

oh yeah that vid's great, love how he tries to smoke it like a crack pipe first lol

Panda singing "I will not give up on you" is the most special part. That and the ooo ooo part always makes me tear up

kind of how winter wonder land was a HCTI-era jam that they brought back for strawberry jam.

Where did you find this? Is this from an interview? That's really interesting

the high pitched "dingy" textural part always reminded me of ice or a still peaceful snowfall

hey did you guys know Loch Raven is a neighborhood in Baltimore?...

there's also a hospital on loch raven blvd., maybe one or more of the boys were born there and this is an homage to their baby place as well as their earlier music....

or maybe one of them had a girlfriend who lived in Loch Raven the neighborhood....

this is probably widely known stuff here but it's new to me

im a ding ding ding ding guy cause that put me into such a trance this one time

There's a lot of stuff named "Loch Raven" in that specific area, but I've always thought they had the Loch Raven Reservoir in mind when they wrote it because it has some nice nature trails.

cody wrote:

kind of how winter wonder land was a HCTI-era jam that they brought back for strawberry jam.

Where did you find this? Is this from an interview? That's really interesting

yeah I haven't heard this before. v interesting if true

remember that from the forum but idk where. like maybe it went with songs like ice cream factory? can kinda picture that. love that song.

I just want to point out that that video is 4:19

Loch Raven is def one of the most amazing songs they've made. Every separate part of it is great in its own simple way, and then they lock together perfectly to make something even better. My favorite parts are the drum beat and the high pitched panda vocals like ahhhhahhhhhhaihhhhahhhhh WOOPWOOP

This was really tough for me. I was surprised to see that most people also chose the "WAIT" part, because I had such a hard time deciding on that over the others. Each part definitely adds up to one of the most transcendental feelings I've had during an AC song. How do you just pick one?

That being said, I went with the "WAIT" part because every time I listen to this song, I wander around for days randomly bursting out with that part in my head, or sometimes aloud.

I always heard it as RAIN, although I guess that doesn't make as much sense. But yeah that was definitely what stood out to me the most when I first heard the song.

Also walking around San Francisco while stoned and listening to Loch Raven on repeat is now high on my bucket list

That's a very astute observation, because yeah they played around with high pitches quite a bit. I guess they must have realized they hit a wall with it's effect or something, kind of like how they're trying to stay away from reverb and watery sounds these days. To be fair, there's not much you can do with that concept outside of what they already did, from the squelchy feedback like on Untitled or Essplode, to the resampler/bitcrushing sound like Loch Raven or Abby's Song, or the trembling one on Native Belle, there's not much need to keep exploring that specific aspect of texture before you become known as that high frequency band.

Would love to hear a wink and nudge return of the sound every once in awhile though.

I always heard it as RAIN, although I guess that doesn't make as much sense. But yeah that was definitely what stood out to me the most when I first heard the song.

that's how i always heard it

Spoiler: show

That's a very astute observation, because yeah they played around with high pitches quite a bit. I guess they must have realized they hit a wall with it's effect or something, kind of like how they're trying to stay away from reverb and watery sounds these days. To be fair, there's not much you can do with that concept outside of what they already did, from the squelchy feedback like on Untitled or Essplode, to the resampler/bitcrushing sound like Loch Raven or Abby's Song, or the trembling one on Native Belle, there's not much need to keep exploring that specific aspect of texture before you become known as that high frequency band.

Would love to hear a wink and nudge return of the sound every once in awhile though.

Totally know what u mean, I really love that type of sound especially in Loch Raven & Abby's Song. and yeah I can see why they don't use those sounds anymore, they would sound too reminiscent of that 03-05 era. but it would be awesome to hear some kind of callback to that. I think in a new interview they said that there was a part on Hocus Pocus that sounded kind of lofi and that's why they had to replace it with John Cale's parts. I wonder if it was originally too close to that bitcrushed kinda sound

There's a similar effect used on the harp at the end of Undo by Bjork. I think it might be a ring modulator or something. Sounds super sweet