ANIMAL COLLECTIVE: CENTIPEDE HZ (2012)
1) Moonjock; 2) Today's
Supernatural; 3) Rosie Oh; 4) Applesauce; 5) Wide Eyed; 6) Father Time; 7) New
Town Burnout; 8) Monkey Riches; 9) Mercury Man; 10) Pulleys; 11) Amanita.
Having so cleverly blown off the top bubbles
from our further expectations with the ODDSAC
project, The Animal Collective were now free to generate the «proper» follow-up
to Merriweather Post Pavillion
without necessarily having to «live up» to it, because «living up» would probably
have meant stepping up on the seriousness pedal and making even further
concessions to the traditional understanding of «gorgeousness» compared to
those already made on Pavillion. But,
as we all know, this treacherous road can easily transform mysterious sonic
deities into ordinary musical mortals. As it is, The Animal Collective are
quite committed to sticking to that «animal» component in their names.
Centipede
Hz, marking the return of
Deakin from an extended break that excluded him from the fame of Pavillion, is titled like a
surrealistic radio station, and, indeed, right from the opening «this is the
news...», with its heavy reliance on the use of static, wave functions, and
annoying bits of pseudo-announcements and commercials scattered all over the
place, the album sounds like a semi-spontaneous extract from such a station.
However, that is not all. Building upon the progress of ODDSAC, the Collective now tax the recording tracks to the max —
the sound is so much cluttered with layers of overdubs that, most of the time,
the immediate impression is that you actually have two or more pieces of music
going on at once. Just the kind of thing you'd get from poor reception in a
heavy interference zone.
This is a risky approach — in the hands of
non-professionals, this could end up as unlistenable, irritating chaos. But ten
years into their recording career, the Animal Collective have worked out a
great feel for how to do it correctly. Any single moment in these songs, if you
just push the play button at a random spot, will sound like stupid noise. But
altogether, these moments add up to almost perfect mathematical order, not
forgetting build-ups, sustained tensions, climaxes, resolutions, and even
hooks (for the brave ones — even singalong
hooks!). Deconstruct the melodies, strip them of their excesses, and you will
have yourself some cuddly, unexceptional folk-pop skeletons — when it comes to
putting chords together, the band hasn't exactly progressed all that much from
the days of Feels (not that they
really should have). But the very point
of the whole thing is — how much denseness and heaviness is allowed before it
all crashes down?
Basically, as much as they want. On my favorite
tracks — such as ʽApplesauceʼ — flying saucers whoosh by, electronic rivers of
sampler sound trickle along, drums alternate between syncopated and straight
patterns, and I cannot properly tell how many different roads are being taken
by different instruments, but none of them detract from feeling the little bit
of kiddie happiness in the repetitive chorus of "...I'm feeling like a
little honey can roll". Nor do they prevent me from feeling a little
pinch of moodiness during the chorus reproach of "you got to slide it off
like mercury, can I play my parts like mercury?" (ʽMercury Manʼ) — no, the
lyrics, in the good old AC tradition, steadily continue not to make any sense
whatsoever, but that does not matter one bit.
That said, there are almost no individual
standouts: every second is so crammed with aural delights, and most of the
delights in question are so enigmatic when it comes to describing the feelings
that they stir up, that I find myself at a total loss trying to single out
peculiar moments. Arguably the only «special» track here is at the very end:
ʽAmanitaʼ starts out in a very focused, collected manner — rather than
scattering themselves all over the place in yet another kaleidoscopic roll,
they open things with a catchy, anthemic synth riff that evokes «progressive»
memories. But the sternness of the approach pretty soon falters, shatters, and
gives way to the predictable sonic explosions.
Yes, the overloaded nature of all these
patterns can get monotonous. I
mentioned build-ups and resolutions, but it's not the kind of build-ups and
resolutions that go from «quiet» to «loud» — over the course of one song, The
Animal Collective will be happy to transport you from one part of their
surrealistic jungle to another, even denser one, but getting out of the thicket
onto the open plains is simply not an
option. If you are psychologically unprepared for fifty minutes of electronic
loops intertwined by twine champions, or all the synthetically processed
double-, triple-, and quadruple- tracked vocals, it might be better to take
these tracks slowly, one or two at a time.
Of course, listeners who got acquainted with
the band primarily through ʽMy Girlsʼ or ʽBluishʼ or any of those other Brian
Wilson-influenced little beauties, and expect more of the same, will get a
headache — the gritty reality being that, if one assesses the AC as a whole,
the world of Centipede Hz is closer
to the «true» AC than the baroque flourishes of Merriweather. I certainly miss the baroque flourishes, and wouldn't
mind them coming back; but I am also quite amazed at how far they have come in
making that same philosophy that irritated me so much on their early records work
so well on this one. Apparently, age and experience got to count for something
even when it comes to deviant avantgarde mindsets. I don't know how well this
thing will be holding up ten years from now, but at least thumbs up will always be thumbs up,
I suppose.
Check "Centipede Hz" (MP3) on Amazon
Well, I don't want to be rude, but I guess this is what happens when you can't come up with an articulate melody. On a brighter note, AC Newman's (take heed, George) latest has some of 2012's best pop songs. The man is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteReactions have generally been mixed for this record. I think that's largely because the vast majority of people listening to it only got into the band through MPP. In the context of their whole career it makes much more sense. The melodies are hard to extract from the sonic stew at first, but once you get into it they reveal themselves to be quite fine indeed.
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