2009 was Animal Collective’s most successful year to date, with Merriweather Post Pavilion launching them into the limelight many fans felt they’ve deserved for a long time, but not necessarily wanted. And they certainly can’t be accused of selling out, the only way their music seems to develop is in more experimental ways, with no sights set on selling records. Whatever their outlook, the songs they present to us continue to be exciting and diverse, with this new EP as a perfect example.
Opener ‘Graze’ starts off as an enticingly gentle song, with lines like “Let me begin” and “Some ideas are brewing”. This lasts until a surprising mid point, when the gentle strings are swapped for a manic pan pipe loop, and speedier vocals. ‘What Would I Want? Sky’ is just as successful, and remains my favourite from the EP. By beautifully sampling a Grateful Dead lyric, “Willow sky, whoa, I walk and wonder why”, and cleverly re-looping it, Animal Collective generate a whole new interpretation, so that the listener hears the title of the track. Genius.
’Bleed’ follows, sounding much more like Collective’s pre-MPP work. Final tracks ‘On A Highway’ (an ode to life on tour), and the seven-minute long ‘I Think I Can’ complete an EP with a spellbinding and relaxing feel.
Perhaps I am about the only person in the western world to not get the appeal of Animal Collective. Granted I may need more exposure to it, but cannot say I have been overly impressed apart from the amount of web blathering about them.
The thing is, for years they were pretty under the radar, so to me they deserve the attention they get. Plus for most people their album was the best of last year.
