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Animal Collective at Celebrate Brooklyn
Brooklyn band tops NME’s “Future 50” and headlines in their own backyard
Animal Collective
Animal Collective have had so much praise heaped upon them by the indie rock press over the past decade that it’s probably impossible to live up to half of it. Having just topped British magazine NME’s “Future 50” innovative acts is only bound to ratchet up the hype to the boiling point. In interviews, they come off as down to Earth and humble but their success is taking on a life beyond their little mad laboratory in Williamsburg. The sheer weirdness of their music might make it hard for the unfamiliar to appreciate that success. Especially for anybody coming out to one of their gigs expecting another band churning out post-punk pop with drums, bass, guitar, verses and choruses.
Make no mistake about it: this band makes experimental music. If you are looking for verses and choruses then you will need to open your mind way up and go with the flow. Because that’s what Animal Collective does. They flow from one sound experiment to the next, with a rotating lineup, creating a compellingly disjointed pastiche of noise that can be both hypnotic and jarring. Maddening even. But vibrant and unique nevertheless. Touring on their latest universally lauded album Merriweather Post Pavillion, you have a chance to join the flow in your own backyard.
I will wager that whatever it is that you think Animal Collective does, they will do it on all cylinders in Prospect Park August 14 and 15. Despite meeting in high school in Baltimore over a decade ago, this is a Brooklyn band. They came to Brooklyn and began churning out their peculiar form of music in Brooklyn rehearsal spaces and clubs. It doesn’t matter that Noah “Panda Bear” Lennox has moved to Lisbon, Portugal. These weekend shows will mean a lot to them and it is an absolute must if you have already figured them out. If they have still left you scratching your head when the lights come back up then it won’t be because they bored you. No. It might be because as a truly contemporary band that indulges in technology to the hilt in their tribal-electro way, you still crave the sort of emotional pay-offs that come with structured rock music. But to them it is structured. It’s up to us to follow along and enjoy the flow.
These guys aren’t your typical musicians. They don’t claim to be. They are samplers and soundscapers, and they communicate musically in a way that is esoteric. They treat the voice like another instrument and talk about their sound in visual terms related to environment or landscapes. Musical painting in a way. They are like the descendents of Kraftwerk in the age of the laptop and the sampling era. Their productivity is evidence that if you have a passion to make music you don’t have to be a trained musician to do it. All you need is a collective vision, some knobs, levers and MacBooks to tear apart and put back together again. It’s not impossible to dance to this kind of tribal-electro-pop but swaying in a trance might be your natural inclination.