Collected Animals

fuck, man. this is my favorite band, obviously, and i'm grateful that i'm alive to witness them making new music & to experience them live; i'm extremely lucky that this band exists and is still active in music. attending their live at 9:30 performance was among the best things that's ever happened to me.

but here's the thing. i'm sitting here listening to sung tongs and freaking out about how ridiculously original and detailed and just plain interesting this music is, as i tend to do with everything AC. "mouth wooed her" just came on, and it's fucking awesome. you can hear panda in one ear and avey in the other as they sing alternately synchronous and intersecting melodies. it sounds so genuinely psychedelic; they stitch together a vibrant tapestry of briefly-strummed guitars, various samples, what sounds like an tabla (drum associated w/ indian music), and of course those synchronous-then-interlocking vocals that SWITCH SIDES at the 1:20 mark in such a great way. (you can hear panda sing an ascending "figure it out," i think, as he moves to the left. if you're looking for a fun AC-related task, trace either noah or dave in this song; once you're more familiar with both parts individually, the combination becomes even better.) and then that ending--panda's fractured voice and a soft acoustic guitar form the backdrop of avey's central line: "i need mouth waaaaaaater," which somehow is both absurdly psychedelic and peaceful at the same time. structurally, the song is very odd, employing a sort of AB structure that has become a sort of signature for them (WWIW?S, turn into something, graze, guys' eyes i think, etc.). yet what should be a jarring transition is quite smooth. it just feels natural.

the music's just not of this planet is what i'm sayin. and i can't dispel the thought of having been really into their music when they were operating at their peak. to experience sung tongs for the first time a week before release, sharing with everyone the intense delight and awe that you're hearing something magical, something truly special. i can't imagine how it would have felt to experience the hype built up to feels (i mean, after an album as brilliant as sung tongs, it would have been hard not to be ridiculously excited) and have it deliver (and they only took a year to make it!). then jam comes along--it delivers, too--and panda bear out of nowhere drops one of the best albums ever, completely different in style from his last one. at this point you've witnessed a band drop four tens in a row (including PP), along with some incredibly good EPs. they're fucking untouchable. this band is so exciting--they keep you guessing but consistently deliver music that satisfies both your brain and your heart. i imagine the excitement reached its peak before and in the wake of MPP and fall be kind. it must have been so gratifying to see them get practically universal love; finally, the general music community realized what you've been hearing since sung tongs (or, if you're more hardcore, spirit--would have been even cooler to start there but few did). fall be kind comes out and, of course, it's incredible and on the same level of MPP, which only they could do; simply no one else was operating at their level.

and i fuckin missed it. i got into them in 2011/12; my first release was centipede hz, a good album but imo a drop from their classic era. i liked following the release of PBVSGR, but still, it doesn't compare to PP. how amazing would it have been to experience the golden years of my favorite band. they delivered for so long and so consistently that it would have been the best band to be a fan of at the time--almost similar to being a radiohead fan in 95-01.

so, those who did get to live through it: what was it like? and those who didn't: do you wish you did as much as i do? i will never get to experience something like this unless a similarly creative band takes the world by storm, but i don't see that happening anytime soon. they're simply on another level, one of the greatest of all time.

brb i'm gonna go patrol old CA archives to see what the reaction to the 04-09 releases was initially like.

inb4 someone replies to this with "Why am I still looking for a golden age?"

I got into the band really really late. A friend showed me some songs from MPP around 2009 but I was not feeling it at all. Then somehow got hooked on the band in late 2013, went through their whole discog, listened to albums on repeat, the whole ritual that everyone goes through when they discover AC

I won't lie, I kinda wish I had liked MPP when I first heard it because I could have seen one of the shows from the 09 tour. Being there when their older albums came out and just hearing the music when it was new would have been very cool I'm sure. That's one thing, but I think the biggest thing for me is missing out on those early shows. All the shows up to and including the Merriweather tours were much messier and looser-feeling imo, and from the Centipede tours onward it's been more kinda polished and professional. That's for a lot of reasons, they've become better musicians, and they've changed their setup a lot, and of course they consciously move away from past styles and eras of their music. I wouldn't say these newer tours are bad, and I've loved them, but they do have a pretty different flavor compared to those older shows. In some ways I can actually sympathize with what Mike Powell's review of Painting With said (the one for Pitchfork), because he's right that their last couple of tours are not quite what the older tours were, but it's not better or worse imo, it's just different. And that taken as a whole that review is shitty and entitled.

Btw this whole post comes with the disclaimer that I love Centipede Hz and PW and the accompanying tours. And those tours have still had a lot of moments of weirdness and experimentation, it's not like they've become totally antiseptic or anything like that. I don't want to sound ungrateful because like u said kafkaesque, I'm so grateful to be alive in this time where I get to see their shows and listen to their music and share it with other ppl. And I'm also grateful for the fan bootlegging community that's surrounded this band for years so I can even hear what those old shows sounded like. Also this is a good time to mention, how fucking insane is it that we have video of AC live in 2001? Seriously so happy that footage exists, it's completely unreal.

I also think, even though I get nostalgic for the eras of AC that I never experienced, I try to temper that nostalgia and just focus on what they're doing now. That's the band's own attitude towards things obviously and I respect that, because they're always trying to get out of their comfort zone and push things forward. I also think that it's sometimes easy to look back on things with rose colored glasses. The MPP era almost feels like a peak that the band was building up to for a decade but a lot of that is just a narrative manufactured by music critics imo. I mean you can ignore the critics and still feel that way obviously, but I really dislike the idea that music is this thing that's supposed to follow a coherent narrative like that, especially with a band as experimental as AC. I think it's more fulfilling and satisfying to listen to the music without any of that kind of baggage, and just treat each album and era as its own thing that shouldn't be compared to others. I know that's basically impossible to do, it's only natural to draw comparisons, but I strive for that kind of impartiality when it comes to music in general.

Good thread idea and curious to hear what others have to say. Would be interested to hear from anyone who attended pre-MPP shows or listened to boots and was upset with how the studio album turned out. I'm sure Stanshant has a thing or two to say lol, but there are lots of longtime fans on here and wanna hear their perspective

i will never get to experience something like this unless a similarly creative band takes the world by storm, but i don't see that happening anytime soon.

Another thought I had when reading this part of ur post — it's rare that a band as experimental/creative/uncompromising as AC gets that level of recognition, but there is still plenty of super inventive, pioneering music getting released right now (with varying levels of hype) that is very very exciting. Lots of stuff that I feel grateful to be around to witness. The new Autechre album is one release that I feel that way about

Born twenty years too late to experience Autechre's golden age

2016 has been the best year to be an AC fan



And I fully believe that because I truly loved the year that I got into them which was 2007. Person Pitch was the first of their releases that I listened to consisently. From the age of 15 to 16 I starting smoking a lot of weed and became somewhat familiar with their back catalogue (mostly Feels and Sung Tongs) and when SJ came out I knew I had found my new favorite band. I saw them live the following summer and was blown away and then became an annoying super fan who wouldn't stop playing Animal Collective songs to try to get my friends hooked. I started going on CA and listening to boots soon after. Then MPP came out, which I was excited to see getting a lot of attention, however I didn't think it captured the spectrum and nuances of the live shows at the time. But because my friends tolerated it, I played it a bunch over the summer of 2009

The next two years, my obsession was sustained by ODDSAC and moving to Brooklyn where I was able to go to the Down There release party, as well as see some Deakin and some Avey solo shows. But then my life started to get shitty, and so my attitude at the time wasn't able to get into the pre CHz and Tomboy hype. I too had thought the golden age was gone. I was especially bitter about the lack of change in set lists during 2011/12, but by 2013 I was getting more on board again. I loved the early PBVSGR recordings and witnessing his live shows, but was again somewhat disappointed by the final product as well as the Slasher Flicks stuff. It's not like I decided AC sucked or anything, but I did feel like my expectations weren't being met. By this time, streaming services had scratched my itch for other genres of music and I stopped listening to boots as much. I still was rooting for AC's return to form, which was answered with Floridada.

I was very pleased with how Painting With sounded and loved being surprised with brand new tunes. The early 2016 live shows were good, but eventually became amazing. I've been really impressed at their dedication to tour in smaller cities and by going HAM during the improv segments of their shows. I can tell that they feel reenergized by going to all these brand new places. I'm also pleased to see them becoming more professional and making a decent living off their music, but at the same time they have still managed to play at smallish venues with ticket prices at a reasonable level.

On top of all the touring, there's been Sleep Cycle, a bunch of new mixes, 3 new recorded songs, quality sounding boots and a ton of revealing interviews. Its bittersweet that this year is coming to a close, but I'm hopeful they'll continue to ride this high that they're on and 2017 will be a great companion year. I'm glad that I'm older now so that I can appreciate my teenage fanatic years, but also so that I can see that, like myself, I've had rough patches through the years, but they've worked themselves out over time. And although I too would've liked to have been a teen when say HTCI came out, I'm also glad I'm where I'm at right now and am glad to still have a lot to look forward to

I heard about Feels from a recommendation list on Amazon in 2005. I had a pretty good job and I was single then, so I had extra money, and when I went to buy it, Sung Tongs was also recommended, so I purchased them together. On first listen, neither of them really mattered to me, so I put them on the shelf, (and on my IPod.) Fast forward about two months, and I met this girl and fell head over heels in love with her right away. It sounds crazy to say it now, but we literally started moving in together on our first date. At a certain point we were listening to all of my music on shuffle, and "Kids on Holiday" came on. This beautiful girl said, "oh my god, what is THIS!?!" She started listening to AC religiously. We lived together in Portland, Oregon, and she had never met my family in Salt Lake City. So when we found out we we were pregnant, we made the trek to SLC to meet them, and who happened to be playing in salt Lake that week? Animal Collective! (We also saw LCD Sound system open up for Arcade Fire at a place called the Waterfall Amphitheatre, but that's a different story.)

It was crazy! I had no idea what to expect, seeing AC live in 2006, but it changed my life. It was so tribal and energetic and ferocious and beautiful. Avey wore these moccasins, and danced in little circles, and wailed on the cymbals during We Tigers, and Grass, and early iterations of Brother Sport, and My Girls. They played freaking WCWAR. We were right up against the stage, my pregnant girlfriend and I.

We celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary this year. Animal Collective has been my favorite band ever since that show, but if it wasn't for her... Who knows?

I heard about Feels from a recommendation list on Amazon in 2005. I had a pretty good job and I was single then, so I had extra money, and when I went to buy it, Sung Tongs was also recommended, so I purchased them together. On first listen, neither of them really mattered to me, so I put them on the shelf, (and on my IPod.) Fast forward about two months, and I met this girl and fell head over heels in love with her right away. It sounds crazy to say it now, but we literally started moving in together on our first date. At a certain point we were listening to all of my music on shuffle, and "Kids on Holiday" came on. This beautiful girl said, "oh my god, what is THIS!?!" She started listening to AC religiously. We lived together in Portland, Oregon, and she had never met my family in Salt Lake City. So when we found out we we were pregnant, we made the trek to SLC to meet them, and who happened to be playing in salt Lake that week? Animal Collective! (We also saw LCD Sound system open up for Arcade Fire at a place called the Waterfall Amphitheatre, but that's a different story.)

It was crazy! I had no idea what to expect, seeing AC live in 2006, but it changed my life. It was so tribal and energetic and ferocious and beautiful. Avey wore these moccasins, and danced in little circles, and wailed on the cymbals during We Tigers, and Grass, and early iterations of Brother Sport, and My Girls. They played freaking WCWAR. We were right up against the stage, my pregnant girlfriend and I.

We celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary this year. Animal Collective has been my favorite band ever since that show, but if it wasn't for her... Who knows?

fuck, that's the best AC discovery story I've ever read! so happy for you dude

Thank you! Those were magical days. It's nice to reminisce.

the real magic of their music is how so much of it it timeless to the new observer.... you can get lost like you're experiencing it the day it was released. basically you can experience the golden age simply by listening to the records... .they are all-encompassing

seeing AC live in 2006... early iterations of Brother Sport, and My Girls. They played freaking WCWAR

2007 maybe?

I heard about Feels from a recommendation list on Amazon in 2005. I had a pretty good job and I was single then, so I had extra money, and when I went to buy it, Sung Tongs was also recommended, so I purchased them together. On first listen, neither of them really mattered to me, so I put them on the shelf, (and on my IPod.) Fast forward about two months, and I met this girl and fell head over heels in love with her right away. It sounds crazy to say it now, but we literally started moving in together on our first date. At a certain point we were listening to all of my music on shuffle, and "Kids on Holiday" came on. This beautiful girl said, "oh my god, what is THIS!?!" She started listening to AC religiously. We lived together in Portland, Oregon, and she had never met my family in Salt Lake City. So when we found out we we were pregnant, we made the trek to SLC to meet them, and who happened to be playing in salt Lake that week? Animal Collective! (We also saw LCD Sound system open up for Arcade Fire at a place called the Waterfall Amphitheatre, but that's a different story.)

It was crazy! I had no idea what to expect, seeing AC live in 2006, but it changed my life. It was so tribal and energetic and ferocious and beautiful. Avey wore these moccasins, and danced in little circles, and wailed on the cymbals during We Tigers, and Grass, and early iterations of Brother Sport, and My Girls. They played freaking WCWAR. We were right up against the stage, my pregnant girlfriend and I.

We celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary this year. Animal Collective has been my favorite band ever since that show, but if it wasn't for her... Who knows?

see, this. this is what i absolutely yearn for. i still think they release solid music, and sleep cycle is one of my favorite albums this year. it's increased my confidence that AC still has another jaw-dropping record or two in them. i'll always be excited for their new stuff. but i can't help but wish i'd witnessed my favorite period from my favorite band as it happened; my excitement and pure joy when seeing them would have been unrivaled by anything. their 03-09 streak (my personal favorite & just a purely, undeniably strong seven years) is one of the all-time greats, if not THE great. only maybe talking heads, the beatles, radiohead, and bowie could challenge it in my mind (it's the quality + quantity + frequency that i'm considering).

fuck, there i go again. AC 4 life. considering getting a tattoo, but i'm not sure what i'd get. maybe an lyric and an image interpretation of it?

LOLing at this thread...r u forreal man. wat kinda shizz is this. i understand wat ur saying but the only way id ever agree with you is on grounds of seeing their old live shows. u were born just in time for their silver age LOL. outside of that period ac had a movie, a fuckin installation at tha GUGGENHEIM. without a doubt these guys are still able to make incredible stuff..u guys are real debbie downers. pw wasnt as mazing compared to the others (but still amazing) but centipede hz...sleep cycle...tomboy and down there all point towards them still keeping the same magicks...
plus they played alvin row live this year LOL BORN JUST IN TIME FOR DAT

Fuck off feel online

Anyway, this thread is getting me emotional. I'm totally in the same boat. I'm 20, and got hooked on AC my freshman year of high school, during the CHz days. I'm thankful that I got to be so involved with the hype around PBVSGR, and I got to see AC at their first ever performance of Alvin Row.... but I can't shake the reality that I wasn't old enough / paying attention when they were making the music that (in my opinion) they were really born to make. The stretch from 2000 - 2007 is just unbelievable, for all the reasons that kafkaesque said and more. The music they were making and the performances they were giving were deeply psychedelic and beautiful in ways that most musicians I've heard haven't touched. It's simply a disappointing fact of life that I can't go see AC perform on the Sung Tongs tour, or the crazy Danse tour basement shows. I've never felt a more personal connection to music than I have to STGSTV and Campfire Songs. I consistently find myself heartbroken knowing that I can't witness that music as it happens.

But, to keep on the bright side, I have to remember that I'm young, and music has never been changing and growing as quickly and crazily as it is right now. There are countless amazing musicians that are just beginning to show up, and I'll get to see them grow.

But none of those people are Animal Collective... it'll always be on my mind.

Also, shouts out to deak for restoring my faith in the band

Also, @kafkaesque, the tattoo idea. I'm getting one later this month of the little symbol on the middle of the STGSTV record, on my forearm. I thought it was appropriate because it's specific enough to feel personal, pretty enough to be an artistic tattoo, and symbolizes my favorite AC album (and my favorite album overall)

Nobody should feel bad about missing what's in the past and what you simply weren't aware of.

I'm giving a quick glance at my itunes and there's ~17 hours worth of AC studio recordings there, that's not even counting the live/radio bootlegs. How awesome is that, that people can just discover all that amazing music all at once? You can make your own story re: your own discovery of everything that's available, and still look forward to shows/new albums.

I..... used to hate animal collective and actively avoided them and related projects for almost 8 years.

and now here I am.

Nobody should feel bad about missing what's in the past and what you simply weren't aware of.

I'm giving a quick glance at my itunes and there's ~17 hours worth of AC studio recordings there, that's not even counting the live/radio bootlegs. How awesome is that, that people can just discover all that amazing music all at once? You can make your own story re: your own discovery of everything that's available, and still look forward to shows/new albums.

Great post

If anything, I'm grateful to have missed the truly golden eras of Animal Collective music. Those recordings only exist in that crystalline, untouchable form. I was never able to frame any release before MPP with my preconceptions or expectations or familiarity with their tropes. Each and every release I went back to, from my entry point of Strawberry Jam, was a revelation, a baffling puzzle at times, often jarring and uneasy until it clicked, but it all did, and it only became richer and richer from that point. Yes, most of those records are also associated with some truly golden years of my own life, living abroad, away from all expectations and familiar habits and well-worn grooves. Elements of my personality and my outlook on life were able to peek out and then flourish and Animal Collective was the soundtrack to a brand new, rich and stimulating life, for about five years. During that time, I must have spent forty percent of my waking hours lancing chicks on my tumescent rod-on. I was walking round like the letter K, with the straight line representing one leg, the downward sloping line representing my other leg and the upward sloping line representing my bulbous statement of intent. Street Flash in a monsoon. Leaf House at a tea ceremony. Chores walking over a wooden bridge in the moonlight. Alvin Row on a crowded sweaty bus. Jumping out of a window to Peacebone. A luxurious morning wank to De Soto De Son. Sticking to a leather sofa in 40 degrees to Chocolate Girl. Breaking off an engagement because the girl said Brother Sport was shit. This is my life with Animal Collective. No matter how good the rest has been, the symbiosis peaked with the MPP freebird and walking home from work through the crunching snow, teary with joy and relief and exhaustion from waiting, drinking a beer, drinking another, eating a takeaway pork bun and some soup noodles, just walking and walking in the snow, the brake lights hazy through the steam and the tears and the cacophony of the city drowned out by the deafening throb of Daily Routine, and the piano chords reverberating forever...

I woke up the next day jittery with excitement and listened again and again all day, crying with relief, with joy but finally by sehnsucht. I knew then that the record wasn't as good as the boots and it never has been since. I came home, put on some beige slacks and bought the best of Maroon 5. I sit patiently in my Earthly grave and wait to return to the source.

If anything, I'm grateful to have missed the truly golden eras of Animal Collective music. Those recordings only exist in that crystalline, untouchable form. I was never able to frame any release before MPP with my preconceptions or expectations or familiarity with their tropes. Each and every release I went back to, from my entry point of Strawberry Jam, was a revelation, a baffling puzzle at times, often jarring and uneasy until it clicked, but it all did, and it only became richer and richer from that point. Yes, most of those records are also associated with some truly golden years of my own life, living abroad, away from all expectations and familiar habits and well-worn grooves. Elements of my personality and my outlook on life were able to peek out and then flourish and Animal Collective was the soundtrack to a brand new, rich and stimulating life, for about five years. During that time, I must have spent forty percent of my waking hours lancing chicks on my tumescent rod-on. I was walking round like the letter K, with the straight line representing one leg, the downward sloping line representing my other leg and the upward sloping line representing my bulbous statement of intent. Street Flash in a monsoon. Leaf House at a tea ceremony. Chores walking over a wooden bridge in the moonlight. Alvin Row on a crowded sweaty bus. Jumping out of a window to Peacebone. A luxurious morning wank to De Soto De Son. Sticking to a leather sofa in 40 degrees to Chocolate Girl. Breaking off an engagement because the girl said Brother Sport was shit. This is my life with Animal Collective. No matter how good the rest has been, the symbiosis peaked with the MPP freebird and walking home from work through the crunching snow, teary with joy and relief and exhaustion from waiting, drinking a beer, drinking another, eating a takeaway pork bun and some soup noodles, just walking and walking in the snow, the brake lights hazy through the steam and the tears and the cacophony of the city drowned out by the deafening throb of Daily Routine, and the piano chords reverberating forever...

I woke up the next day jittery with excitement and listened again and again all day, crying with relief, with joy but finally by sehnsucht. I knew then that the record wasn't as good as the boots and it never has been since. I came home, put on some beige slacks and bought the best of Maroon 5. I sit patiently in my Earthly grave and wait to return to the source.

Legit post of the year


You're absolutely right about the effect preconceptions and expectations have on post-AC-discovery releases. Pretty much every studio recording after SJ in which I listened to the bootlegs prior to hearing the album, have left me a little disappointed. Sleep Cycle and Mountain Game maybe the only exceptions, which probably benefitted from their long gestation periods and my lack of recent familiarity with those tunes. ODDSAC, TTG, Down There, NPA V. 1, Swallow in the Hallow, PW, and Gnip Gnop/Hounds and a lot the remixes all have benefitted from being surprising and fresh to my ears.
So I'm with you Stan, if I had started listening to boots in 06, I probably would've been dissatisfied with the way SJ came out. Thankfully I didn't, so I'm grateful that I can experience those earlier albums and live recordings with the same type of appreciation

i gadda agree wth the guy up there..as it stands now strawberry jam is my fav album of all time by anyone. If I had been kicking it in 05 and 06 I would've done felt the inevitable demoitis from them making dryer and stripping out the feels elements from the live shows...so me tweeting it or whatever being able to go at with the preconceived notions from The Best Music Critics Right Now Online YouTube comments section that it wasn't his helped my interest and just let me open my eyes to it...
My first two favorites were Peacebone and #1...and then I heard fwx (AMV?!)

I can neva fuck off

Nice post Stan, you prick

Gizza kiss x

stan banta keeps this board alive

Lmao, I love you stan, best post on this board in a while

Thanks for the love, guys, sending it all back with interest.

they really had such an amazing run in 2007, from live SJ to studio SJ and then straight on to touring MPP, unbelievable, plus you had Person Pitch and Avey and Kria's stuff..

I first heard Sung Tongs in the Fall of 2004, my first semester at Hampshire College. By bff introduced me to it and I was smitten. I would dial them up on my classic ipod and stroll around campus or sit in the cafeteria admiring the afternoon light through the windows. I thought their music was so giddy and beautiful.

Flash forward to my second semester, Spring 05, and some guy on my hall walks up to me and says, "dude, that band you're always listening to is playing on the library lawn right now." AC was playing at my college and I didn't even know about it. I ran over to the library lawn in the dark and found about 25 students squeezed right up to the little stage and really moshing to the music. The boys all had masks on and they were ferally ripping so hard proto-Feels material. I was sooo miffed! This band that I liked played no songs that I knew and they sounded so fucking erratic and freaky and the opposite of the recorded Sung Tongs. I remember hearing what would become Grass--Ave's yelps and screeches I will never forget. But listen up CA--I walked away after a few songs because I was not digging it! I kick myself whenever I think back on it. The person I am now would have melted in that vibe. I guess we can all look back and say "I wish I had experienced this special time, or been more present with the music then.." When Feels finally came out I fell head over heels for it, and it became my new constant companion.

Flash forward to Spring 2006. I went to see the boys play at Avalon in Boston with my then gf. This was to be the greatest live performance of any music I have ever seen in my life. SJ era tunes that rollicked from ethereal to ear-blasting, Avey had a jew fro that was bobbing and pulsing with his movements, and there were only the house lights, no flashy things at all. They didn't need em, they were, in the way they moved, the most exciting vision. When SJ freebirded and a pal burned it for me in Spring 2007 the first time I listened I loved every part of it immediately (I've never had that experience with an album since or before).

And it was just that Fall 07 that I saw them again in Boston for the start of the MPP era. Bearhug was the song that blew me to the moon. Half the fucking crowd was singing the lyrics just from listening to the boots! AC was on some kinda wave. You could tell that something ridiculously special was going on. My ears were ringing for days after that show...

This thread just made me realize that I saw 3 different eras in 3ish years! They were making music breakneck style.

I wish I had gotten to see the prime of so many other bands (pink floyd for example), but am glad to have fallen in love with AC at just the right time and to have been the right age.

I'm sure all you folks who missed out on these special live experiences will find them somewhere someday where you least expect it.

I sit patiently in my Earthly grave and wait to return to the source.

Jerry wonder great read too ...