Animal Collective to Reissue Campfire Songs

With this year's Merriweather Post Pavillion, Animal Collective blew up into one of the biggest and weirdest success stories in indie rock—huge, squiggly dance jams that got all the kids wearing neon facepaint and staring at that cover art like it was a Magic-Eye photo. But before all that, the band created tons of quieter, more introspective headphone gems. One of those collections, Campfire Songs, is going to see the light of day once again with an upcoming reissue on the band's own Paw Tracks label.

Campfire Songs, which first dropped in 2003, is a five-song EP of tunes that were written over a four-year period during the band's early development in the swirling whispery folk that Animal Collective would refine later in Here Comes the Indian and Feels. But Campfire Songs had a bit of a more defined purpose. Said the band in a statement: "We wanted to give the music the feeling and atmosphere of the outdoors and the warmth of a fire, so people could bring it indoors." To do so, the band recorded Campfire Songs outdoors in a makeshift screened-in porch studio in order to pick up the sound of birds and insects.

When original label Catsup Plate went under, the band didn't want to see their soothing meditations fade—the reissue of Campfire Songs will be released Jan. 26, 2010, giving Animal Collective fans a calmer respite from all that neon paint and strobe lights.

Related links:
News: Animal Collective Becomes First Band to Attain Grateful Dead Sampling Rights
Catching Up With... Animal Collective
Review: Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavillion

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