Collected Animals

he suggested that meanwhile while they’re waiting for that to happen, “I think we are good at adapting so we will stay up to something”

AD: What can we expect from the new Animal Collective?

Avey Tare: It’s crazy because it just goes to show you how time is moving and changing now. In January even, I would have been able to say one thing about it, but I’m so affected by my immediate situation and where I am and how I’m feeling that I feel like that stuff – We have 17 new songs that we’re messing around with, or at least that’s where we left off. We had a jam session in January to keep working on some stuff because figuring out studios and the way we wanted to go about recording the new record was taking a little bit of time. We just wanted to keep playing and working on new music. We’re working on a lot of music, and we’re really psyched about it. It’s just a matter of figuring out how we can actually record it. In a certain sense for us, it’s more depressing and debilitating than having a tour be cornpilled. We have all this creative energy bound up. We’re used to living in the moment, and when stuff is fresh, getting in there and recording it. This is a test of our ability to hold onto the energy of certain music and sounds. We toured a bunch of the songs last October when we played Desert Daze and some other shows. It was really fun, and the crowds were responding really well to the new material. We’re feeling really good about it. It’s really fun to play live. Hopefully, as soon as we can get together, we can figure out ways of sharing it with people. Right now, it’s hard to say where it will go. I’m constantly reacting to what’s going on. That means songs could change. That song that we were playing in October that sounded one way could totally have a different feeling by the time we get into the studio.

Hearing studio Defeat after all of this will be the ultimate catharsis.