animal collective / 'freak folk' / manitoba etc.

[kid cue]

can someone please explain the appeal of these sounds to me? i've been playing my secondhand copy of Animal Collective's Feels and it does almost nothing for me. i feel as if i hear this style of shriek-singing and certain pastoral guitar tones and am instantly turned off. also w/ that Manitoba record Up in Flames. do you have to know something about American folk music to really get it?

[dubman]

haha, i was just reading a discussion on another board about what the appeal of animal collective is supposed to be.

i'm at work right now and can't get all into it quite yet but i just wanted to pop in and say i absolutely love them. the 'why' of it actually relates to part of why i also really like "up in flames" in that folk music is so well known for strumming its way into oblivion, remaining simple and focusing heavily on the acoustic guitar and all the very zen things about it. why it features so prominently in earth festivals and the 'enlightened liberal' household is its assumed connection to the earth and all things organic, so follow it by finding a string and plucking at it. no electrical cords, no buttons, or any of that.

the problem is that nature is not a calming thing. nature is crazy. it fights back where it can and grows twice as fast where you cut it. there's no expression for the exhiliration of it, just the "at peace" sentiment. so when you take the "natural" human voice (something folk singers are big about), and you use it to yell as loud as you can, or put it against a calamitous backdrop of bells and wind instruments, the expression of natural environments is just as natural as your regular folk music purports to be.

animal collective have mentioned a couple times (because i looked for it) in there being a strong spiritual aspect to what they do. their most recent ep, "people" is a flagrant abuse of the idea taking over considerations of structure, and its linear quality and repetitive vocals put one, as the pitchfork review said, in a very specific place. and after a few rounds of shouting "PEOPLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLE!!!!!!1" it finally completes the idea by descending into scattered whooping and hollering. the primary thing with animal collective is a sense of celebration (which is why banshee beat was such a departure for them), and they communicate it so much better how they do it than if they really tried to write any specifics.

anyway this turned out long and now i really do have a lot to do.

[kid cue]

omg i totally forgot to read this thread.

thanks - that's really helpful. it makes total sense that Animal Collective would be channeling those feelings, but i'm not sure how clearly it comes across. i keep picking up hints of indie, for osme reason; it makes me take them a little less seriously, but i haven't listened to the Panda Bear or Grizzly whatever albums yet either.

the MV & EE show, on the other hand, totally did this too, without sounding 'like' nature - but i'm not sure how comparable they are.

[Tania]

I adore Animal Collective and Manitoba/Caribou.
As far as it making sense for you, I think its like anything else in life, it either works for you or it doesnt. But give it another try!! =)

[dubman]

haha, i just thought my reply was so incoherent that it was just dropped.

panda bear sounds (and this is going to be super helpful) like a jacked out brian wilson who grew his hair and went to live in germany. deep layers of golden pop that only reminds of AC and can remain totally seperate from it. i like it quite a bit but it's not a favorite like so many other peoples. my favorite track is "i'm not". the shortest one of the bunch, a friend and i had this on repeat in addition to the album while driving 6 hours through the california hills during sunset. it was pretty fantastic.

but really, this all comes from an unassuming dude living in portugal with his kids.

fun fact: AC's best memory of 2006 is the daft punk gig at coachella. i'm a sorta member of rerz where they discuss a bunch of crap about future releases and what they're digging and they pretty much all agreed that even if their own concert had turned to shit they still would have had the time of their life.
it was funny because i usually hear them plugging people like ariel pink or some obscure musique concrete

i think i talked about burial with deaken tho.

[Strangelet]

i want to confess my undying love for animal collective and panda bear. Saw them live last night and it was mental. I can't wait for them to get more money together for a proper tour with more musicians. but they did ok with what they had.

kid cue, do you have the same response to panda bear's new one? person pitch? Its not very far removed from the collective sound but it is a lot more lush. I fucking love it. definitely one of the best for 2007.

for me the band represents a youth and a rebellion of musical spirit. there's a strong chord of brutality mixed with a quasi religious anamistic chanting, mixed with a strange beach boys melodic beauty. I don't know. I do know I probably see them differently than a lof of the other fans. A lot of them at the show sported chunky glasses, ironic tee shirts, full grandfather beards and all looked like they've collected every mcsweeney's anthology ever printed. And I don't associate usually with that kind of crowd.

(lol at the 20 yr old kid with the grunge shorts smoking a pipe)

[kid cue]

yeah, i'm still not into them. i'm not familiar enough with Beach Boys material to comment much on that relationship, but i just get this nagging sense of modern-day boho pseudo-escapism that constantly interferes with my ability to get into Animal Collective. i know this isn't very fair and a live show would probably clear up this issue for me. the quasi-religious aspect strikes me as really pretentious though, like a Brooklyn aesthete.

i haven't been able to listen to Person Pitch very closely, but i'd like to hear it some more.

[Strangelet]

yeah I may later decide that they are pretentious and that I'm pretentious for my enjoying their music, especially finding something religious in their music. But i doubt it.

1. music and religion have *never* existed apart from each other since we were erect and banging on rocks with other rocks because the moon was eclipsing and that kind of felt good as a way to express the awe of it all. I specifically mentioned animism. by that I mean a religion without an anthromorphic deity, but a more gaia principle where nature presumes a kind of consciousness that is not necessarily human, but still self aware. this is the oldest form of relgiious thinking and is something that I personally feel represented in that native, stripped down musical rules and structures combined with the notion of celebration that is in their music. I mean if you don't like the music then you'd want to think that it wouldn't be very religious at all. it would just be bad music.

2. the definition of pretense implies that the artist panders to the audience. I just don't see that with them. They are too difficult and create the responses of hatred by too many people for them to be considered pretentious. I mean its hard to argue this conclusively when pitchforkmedia.com and the hipstsers who treat urban outfitters as the single largest direction of their paycheck all cream their ben sherman pants for the band. ANd I did smell the whiff of pretense from the crowd and its really kind of silly to think I'm some how a stalwart monument of authenticity in a wash of pretense.

At the same time I genuinely like them and its not because I want to be weird or hip. And I do believe that there is a lot of that going on. I just fucking love their bravery (which is the antithesis of pretense) and their ability to challenge not on purpose, but by being who they are and in the midst of the sounds they create, that for me is a religious experience of some quality.

[kid cue]

1. i don't at all disagree that making and experiencing music can be like religion in nature. music must be the artform that most readily touches that kind of transcendence. but i find it annoying (or problematic at worst) when the content of the music necessarily points to our conscious notions of what "religion" is, as if transcendent music weren't inherently "religious" to begin with. obviously it's their prerogative if they want to use chanting and other primitivist sounds to channel these feelings, but it's all sort of cloying and obvious IMO. i don't think there's something inherently wrong with it, but the New Age echoes of all this gaia stuff aren't to my taste at all, and for me only ensure that the semi-conscious/whatever religion in the music gets in my way.

2. i'm not sure what being a pretentious artist has to do with pandering to a crowd. i know plenty of pretentious artists who could not care less about pandering to anyone.

i appreciate their audacity too, but i guess i just don't like their style.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by kid cue

1. i don't at all disagree that making and experiencing music can be like religion in nature. music must be the artform that most readily touches that kind of transcendence. but i find it annoying (or problematic at worst) when the content of the music necessarily points to our conscious notions of what "religion" is, as if transcendent music weren't inherently "religious" to begin with. obviously it's their prerogative if they want to use chanting and other primitivist sounds to channel these feelings, but it's all sort of cloying and obvious IMO. i don't think there's something inherently wrong with it, but the New Age echoes of all this gaia stuff aren't to my taste at all, and for me only ensure that the semi-conscious/whatever religion in the music gets in my way.

so basically you're saying its just not your cup of tea? so cool. Beyond that I have a few problems with what you're saying. HOw can it be a problem hearing a particular kind of religious quality when we agreee experiencing music can be religious in nature? This is kind falls flat when you take away the first premise of your argument: you don't like animal collective. I happen to know from previous conversations that you appreciate the music of bach, which you must understand emotes the kind of religiousity that only someone with his religious sentiments could create. other artists evoke different religious principles. BUT ALL OF THIS is irrelevant because I never said Animal Collective is shooting for a religious experience. I never read that anywhere. That's completely my own reaction to the music, independent of any desired effect. Which means I can pretty much say it as much as I want. Its not a math equation, its art.

2. i'm not sure what being a pretentious artist has to do with pandering to a crowd. i know plenty of pretentious artists who could not care less about pandering to anyone.

??!! what is your definition of "prententious?" I consulted google and got this to come up on top....

making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction

which implies observation, which implies the existence of audience. what definition are you using?