Collected Animals

My overriding impression of the MPP over the last decade is that, while I adore it and the era blah blah blah, it's very fucking fatiguing and muddy and there's no treble and it's just a a fucking Best New Allen mush of dogshit, which is happens to be smeared over arguably their greatest set of songs.

Fast forward.

I got myself Hifiman Ananda planar phones, Astell & Kern Kann DAP and Fiio Q5S Amp/DAC and even something like My Girls or Brother Sprot which normally sound like mulch at various points (and I've had some mother fucker tier gear over the years) sound fucking c R I s p.

I know this is like the humble brag rage kind of check out my fuckin GEAR kind of post but that's not my point. It's more that if you listen to completely neutral mid/hi-fi shit, then even MPP is actually not a a total shit recording. You just need to separate out every single mother fucker and give it some room to breathe.

Best New Allen was just a decade ahead. (I don't mean this, it's absurd that this record sounds so bloated and muddy on 99.9% of setups).

Get him back for Disco Dennis. c*** could probably do with the work.

You probably could have found another dozen topics where you complained about it to rebuttal the last ten years, but it’s ok. Glad you got your ears checked.

I've literally no memory of either your username or a single post you've ever made.

A lot of fond memories of MPP. Listened to it with my gf lying on the floor, home for winter break. She teared up at Daily Routine and NMR. Years later we were on a cruise in Jamaica, stoned and returning to our room and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and it was on and veruca salt(?) Scene. I want it now and it hit me that was the sample for end of Daily Routine. I'm biased and I'm not bc I had similar issues with the studio versions but I'll always love this band

I've literally no memory of either your username or a single post you've ever made.

That’s alright, mostly my only contribution was the first live boot from the 2019 tour

I am curious, what AC or solo project do you listen semi regulary ?
In my head you re tied with MPP

My most played ever are probably, in this order:

Feels
MPP
Strawberry Jam
Water Curses
Person Pitch

These days, my go-to would be Sung Tongs, Prospect Hummer, Pullhair Rubeye and I dip into the peaks of Danse, Ark, Hollinn, Young Prayer, Spirit, Campfire as well as some Jane.

Generally these days I prefer the more abstract and/or acoustic stuff but I will go back to those first five. All of the above is 'my' AC, as it were.

There's other stuff I quite enjoy, some stuff I overplayed and some that is just not for me but if it's for them and for others, that's awesome.

In terms of the boots, the Sung Tongs stuff from 03/04 is my favourite alongside the early MPP stuff. Not that enamoured with much else, although I have enjoyed various other sets and there's probably at least one from every era I've really enjoyed.

If I had to pick one forever and no other, it would be Feels.

I probably listen to AC of some of form every few days. What about yourself?

I do adore MPP but I do think you need some seriously decent gear to pick everything out because almost every element has so much reverb and/or delay on it. If your headphones are at all heavy in the bass/low mids, too much gets overlapped and lost. It's a distinct sound on speakers but hard to present on headphones.

Well Feels is my favorite album of all time, never gets old to me.

I think I overplayed most of them but sometimes an album reopen itself to me in a way I never thought it could. Almost like as if I was discovering it.
But in the past year I ve been listening mostly to ARK, all the new solo stuff, Prospect Hummer, Sung tongs and Young Prayer. Also the BBC live stuff is in the rotation. Also the new EP is really good.

I usually listen to boots more nowaday too, mostly La Fondation Cartier 2004, Other music 2004, Cats Cradle Chapel Hill 2004, Rock Herk 2006 (the acoustic one, what a treat) and 2008 Lux Fragil ("it's time to rewind the tape").

I can go a month without listening to the band I think. Tho If I am up late on the computer, I'll always watch some live at one point.

I think we've got a lot of overlap there!

Well Feels is my favorite album of all time, never gets old to me.

I think I overplayed most of them but sometimes an album reopen itself to me in a way I never thought it could. Almost like as if I was discovering it.
But in the past year I ve been listening mostly to ARK, all the new solo stuff, Prospect Hummer, Sung tongs and Young Prayer. Also the BBC live stuff is in the rotation. Also the new EP is really good.

I usually listen to boots more nowaday too, mostly La Fondation Cartier 2004, Other music 2004, Cats Cradle Chapel Hill 2004, Rock Herk 2006 (the acoustic one, what a treat) and 2008 Lux Fragil ("it's time to rewind the tape").

I can go a month without listening to the band I think. Tho If I am up late on the computer, I'll always watch some live at one point.

Checking out Lux Fragil for the first time...Fireworks is fucking destroying me...I’m not worthy. And best Peacebone ever holy shit

yeah... lux fragil is one of their most insane shows... that shit blows my mind everytime i listen to it and the set is massive. i love the 2008 chocolate girl so much. up there with paris 04 and maybe sponge luke bowery ballroom as my fav animal collective boots (other 2 favs would be feb 24th 2016 city and cains balroom 2019... these bastards still got it)

i just put on MPP for the first time in a while (see: weeks) and yeah it's so well produced dude, it rips on any good setup i've played it on, including these sennheiser HD 'phones

I agree, although I liked Merriweather regardless. However, when I got my massdrop 6xx open backs and a decent amp — man oh man did it really pop out to a point where every sound held and moved within its own individual space; so much so that every sound could be visualized in my mind in a synethesic way.

I don't have a very expensive setup (focusrite dac/amp and the venerable sets DT770 + HD598) but I know exactly what you mean. Although it took me a decade to really start to get the album from a sonic perspective.

A good stereo image (separation) is necessary because it is panned in a very particular way, with essentially no more highs in the middle than is necessary to get the vocal sounding good. The highs are panned way out to the side. I assume this is to get that huge hip hopish organic muddy monster bass tightly centered and give it the room it needs, since having lows on the sides causes phase issues. I mean, considering how muddy it *is* this is seemingly something they struggled with. The record sounds like nothing I've ever heard before or since so I'd say they were quite successful in the mixing department with the solution they found.

Once you are aware of this, it makes geo's parts seem a lot more coherent when you can follow them and know where they are. It sounds chaotic but the parts are meticulously stacked and aligned in the stereo field.

Also, I wasn't around for the MPP live era so I didn't hear the live boots until recently. The parts are far more sparse live and when you learn them, they make more sense in the dense mix.

Just chiming in to say Ben Allen had his work fucking cut out for him trying to make an album with this much shit going on sound good on headphones AND tiny little speakers AND big hi-fi systems

Ben Allen is probably a guy who wants to make sure things sound at least pretty good on all kinds of different speakers, and that's a fucking hard compromise when you have such a busy album as this one

Their other albums work so well on headphones because that's probably what they were mixed for (and Strawberry Jam is so barebones that it's easier to balance stuff) whereas by MPP you've got to have radio-friendly mixes or the boys get dropped from the label and then don't get to feed their families

Everything sounds like it's coming from everywhere at once on this album because so many different people listen to it on so many different systems. It's like Brian Wilson mixing only in mono because he couldn't predict what kind of stereo speaker setup the huge Beach Boys audience would be using.

all that said, I want to get my friend to listen to the 2007 boots because that's a magically minimal time right there

the best-mixed AC albums for headphones, imo, are Sung Tongs and ODDSAC




fuuuuck imagine if Rusty or Nicolas got together with the boys to do a complete re-mix of Spirit and Danse

but now we're into neverending Beatles mix territory so maybe never mind

Is MPP an album named after an amphitheatre named after a newspaper named after a person?

Yes except for the newspaper

What's the Post?

one of the surnames of Marjorie Merriweather Post, it's a double barreled thing I think. Like John and Yoko Ono Lennon. Her mum's surname was Merriweather and her dad's surname was Post.