Pages tagged “animal collective”

Fresh off the success of last year's delicious Strawberry Jam, everyone's favorite creature collaboration has readied an EP for all of our listening and brain-bending pleasure. Water Curses is set to drop May 6 on CD and 12-inch vinyl, and will include four brand new Animal Collective tracks. They are as follows:

1. Water Curses
2. Street Flash
3. Cobwebs
4. Seal Eyeing

The relevant press release informs us that these tracks have "a more stripped down feel than their recent work," but also has something more particularly tantalizing to say about the EP's final track; "'Seal Eyeing' is the moment you realize watching vapor trails melt into the sky is not only the most constructive thing you can do, but the only real option that's left." Well. In that case we'll take it...

All the tracks were recorded with Scott Colburn at Wavelab Studio in Tucson, Ariz, except "Seal Eyeing," which was recorded with Nicolas Vernhes at Rare Book Room in Brooklyn, N.Y. Vernhes also mixed the EP.

The fearsome foursome said back in November they aimed to release these outtakes from the Strawberry Jam recording sessions, and they've followed through for sure.

In the meantime, those fortunate enough to live in or be visiting Europe or Asia (or California or New Jersey) might catch a rare sighting of these Animals as they're about to be roaming the world on tour.

Internationally migrating creatures:

March
16 - Osaka, Japan @ Club Quattro
17 - Nagoya, Japan @ Club Quattro
18 - Tokyo, Japan @ Liquid Room
19 - Tokyo, Japan @ Liquid Room

April
26 - Indio, Calif. @ Coachella

May
18 - Minehead, UK @ ATP
19 - Dublin, UK @ Tripod
20 - Glasgow, UK @ Oran Mor
21 - Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Room
22 - London, UK @ Koko
23 - Strasbourgh, France @ La Laiterie
24 - Paris, France @ Alhambra Theatre
25 - Tourcoing, France @ Le Grand Mix
26 - Bordeaux, France @ Krakatoa
27 - Oporto @ Teatro Batalha
28 - Lisbon, Portugal @ Lux Fragil
29 - Malaga, Spain @ AV Cevantes
30 - Valadolid, Spain @ Sala Ambigu
31 - Barcelona, Spain @ Primavera Sound

June
23 - Arendal, Norway @ Hove Festival

August
8-10 - Jersey City, NJ @ All Points West

Related links:
MyAnimalHome.net
Animal Collective on MySpace
Paste: Review: Animal Collective - Feels

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

The union between the museum world and the music world just keeps getting stronger.

On top of the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art’s “Sympathy for the Devil” exhibit (covered in our December/January issue) and the Smithsonian’s “Recognize” exhibit (covered in our forthcoming February issue), The Art Gallery at the University of Maryland is about to put up an exhibit celebrating the rock poster.

Spearheading the project are printmaking professor Justin Strom and exhibition designer John Shipman, who tells Paste that his exhibit—while certainly not the first—is the largest rock poster show yet.

The exhibition will include about 10 pieces each from 27 artists or groups, almost all of whom will allow patrons to buy posters right off the wall. (Well, they’ll be shipped to you after the exhibit. But still.) Prices range from about $15 to $100.

Oddly, the name of the exhibit is Sweet. Shipman hit on the name while surfing around rock-poster website GigPosters.com. “It seems like every time somebody put up a poster, the first response would be, ‘sweet,’” Shipman says. “I loved it, and it just kept sticking.”

Sweet: The Graphic Beauty of the Contemporary Rock Poster, which is free to the public, will run from Feb. 6 to March 29 on campus at the University of Maryland. The exhibit will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and until 6 p.m. on Wednesdays. For more information, call 301-405-2763 or visit the gallery's site below.

Related links:
The Art Gallery
GigPosters.com

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

The Animal Collective experience does not stop. For starters, the hypnotic and compulsively mind-blowing group is set to place two entries into most critics' year-end top twenty lists: Strawberry Jam and Panda Bear's Person Pitch effort (which did quite well for itself on Stylus' final dispatch). As for 2008? Well, let's put it this way: it looks like the band wants to haunt your dreams for another year, dear indie fan.

In a message board post, vocalist Avey Tare gave fans a stream-of-consciousness rundown on what the group has planned. Of note: a four-song EP, including b-side "Street Flash" and three other Strawberry Jam outtakes. The group also hopes to finalize a long-discussed three LP live box set, to be released on Catsup Plate Records. And of course, the group also aims to get in some more recording early next year, with Tare mentioning that he and his mates are trying to get in a session "near the beach." Um... break out the suntan oil?

Thanks to Pitchfork, who originally reported this story and more or less helped buoy our news section today.

Related links:
Animal Collective on MySpace
Paste: Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
YouTube: Animal Collective - "Peacebone"

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

Animal Collective reconvenes for another avant-pop curveball... now with intelligible vocals!

Besides the great music, the fascinating thing about Animal Collective is how malleable a concept it is. For many bands, “growth” amounts to adding a cellist. But for these NYC-based Baltimore expats, who consistently confound pigeonholing (the common “psych-folk” feels particularly myopic vis-à-vis the burbling digitalia of Strawberry Jam), each album finds the group members intuitively utilizing their tools and approaching an expansive feeling—something akin to childhood wonder—from a new angle. Strawberry Jam leads us out of the woods and into the carnival, casting off the shambolic shamanism of earlier Animal Collective works in favor of clipped, cascading melodies and spectral harmonies. The album’s crayon-bright bounce and tweaky rhythms make it sound like the improbable nexus of Black Dice and Timbaland. “Peacebone” gradually marshals a digital squall into a hard-charging thwack; “Unsolved Mysteries” skates over compressed guitar flecks; and “#1” unfolds around one synthetic glissando, making for Animal Collective’s most lucid album yet.

Do you want to see some mild-mannered, somber musicians playing restrained, elegant songs with just the right amount of disconnectedness? In that case, you may want to skip this news item.

Now that the others have scrolled and clicked away, we can tell you about a new traveling circus organized by the mind-blowing musical group known as Animal Collective. The fully human group named after non-humans will release its latest album, Strawberry Jam, on September 11, via Domino Records. Animal Collective will release the album’s first single “Peacebone” on August 21, and the tour will see craziness descend upon North America throughout September and October.

Leave your good manners at home!

Tour dates:

September:
5 - Boston, Mass. @ The Roxy
6 - Montreal, Quebec @ Le National
7 - Ottawa, Ontario @ Bronson Centre Theatre
8 - Toronto, Ontario @ Phoenix
9 - Oberlin, Ohio @ Dionysus Club, Oberlin College (tickets sold to students first)
10 - Chicago, Ill. @ Vic Theatre
11 - Minneapolis, Minn. @ First Avenue
14 - Seattle, Wash. @ Neumos
15 - Vancouver, British Columbia @ Commodore Ballroom
16 - Portland, Ore. @ Roseland Theater
17 - San Francisco, Calif. @ The Fillmore Auditorium
18 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ Henry Fonda Theater
20 - Tucson, Ariz. @ Rialto Theater
21 - El Paso, Texas @ Club 101
22 - Austin, Texas @ Emo’s
23 - Norman, Okla. @ Bricktown Ballroom
24 - St. Louis, Mo. @ Gargoyle Club
25 - Nashville, Tenn. @ Cannery Ballroom
26 - Atlanta, Ga. @ Variety Playhouse
27 - Carrboro, N.C. @ Cat’s Cradle
28 - Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
29 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ Starlight Ballroom
30 - New York, N.Y. @ Webster Hall

October:
1 - New York, NY @ Webster Hall

Related links:
Animal Collective official site (with a terrifying use of strawberry jam)
Animal Collective on MySpace
Paw Tracks: Animal Collective’s record label

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

While most musician/activists out there are busy trying to save the world, headlamp-sporting mix-master Brian Weitz (a.k.a. Geologist) is focusing on a cause far closer to home.

Weitz’s grandfather, a late-stage Parkinson’s patient, has spent the past two months hanging on for dear life in a Philadelphia hospital, unable to fully wake up or recover.

To support future research endeavors, Weitz and his mom will take to the streets of Philly on April 21 for the Parkinson Council’s 2007 Walk for Parkinson’s. Though the two plan on walking all ten miles of the race, their fundraising efforts by no means end at the finish line.

You can donate directly to Weitz’s cause from the comfort of your own computer by visiting his personal walk page.

Related links:
Weitz’s personal walk page
Animal Collective on MySpace
Paw Tracks

A reissue of Animal Collective’s live album Hollinndagain will be released Oct. 31 on Paw Tracks.

This compilation of seven live songs (captured from performances during the first half of 2001) was originally released on 300 limited edition LPs in 2002 on St. Ives Records, and included hand painted cover art.

This marks the first time Hollinndagain (whose original copies are being sold on eBay for gobs of money) will be available to the general public to purchase. It is also the first time it will be released on CD.

Come fall, the band will begin a select run of live dates that will continue through the winter.

Brooklyn weirdoes stay weird

Several months back, delirious with fever and sequestered in the guest room away from his wife and newborn, my buddy Chris repeatedly listened to the Animal Collective’s Sung Tongs (2004). Only recently did it occur to me that this, perhaps, endowed Chris with an incommunicable understanding of that (acclaimed) freaky-ass swirl of abrupt harmonies, disjointed acoustic strums and surreal washes—and it’s probably why I never grokked it.

Feels—the sixth full-length credited to the Collective brand, though the second to feature all four cryptically pseudonymed members—picks up precisely where the last cold-and-flu season ended. Rewarding full attention (and nothing less), the hyper-schizoid singsong polyrhythms (“The Purple Bottle”), creakily epic multi-sectioned drone-ballads (“Banshee Beat”) and insect-pop bubblegum (“Grass”) positively collide over nine unpredictably unique tracks. On the disc-closing “Turn Into Something,” martial drums high-step quickly beneath twinkling keyboards, noise solos and a folky lyric that could be slowed and set to an acoustic jam. And then everything melts for no good reason (but no bad one, either).

Like an organic counterpart to its fellow Brooklynite experimentalists in the Fiery Furnaces, Animal Collective embraces the overtly difficult, all in the name of childlike exploration. And, like the Furnaces, the band can ooze pretension from its natty pores. This ain’t the kinda indie rock that’s gonna get played on any cable dramas, no sir. And except for the fact that it’s being made by scrawny white kids in Brooklyn, it might not even be rock at all. But that’s nitpicking, innit?