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JELLO PUDDING
{{Infobox musical artist
| name = Animal Collective
| image = Ac2.jpg
| image_size = 320
| caption = Animal Collective at the Seaport Music Festival at [[South Street Seaport|The Seaport]], New York City, on June 1, 2007. [[David Portner]] & [[Noah Lennox]] (right).
| landscape = yes
| background = group_or_band
| origin = [[Baltimore]], [[Maryland]], United States
| genre = [[New Weird America]]<br>[[Neo-psychedelia]]<br>[[Experimental music]]
| years_active = 1999–present
| label = Animal, Catsup Plate, [[Secretly Canadian|St. Ives]], [[Paw Tracks]], [[Fat Cat Records|Fat Cat]], [[Domino Records|Domino]]
| associated_acts = [[Panda Bear (musician)|Panda Bear]], [[Vashti Bunyan]], [[Avey Tare & Kría Brekkan]], [[Jane (American band)|Jane]], [[Terrestrial Tones]], Together
| website = [http://myanimalhome.net/ myanimalhome.net]
| current_members = [[Avey Tare|David Portner (Avey Tare)]]<br />[[Panda Bear (musician)|Noah Lennox (Panda Bear)]]<br> [[Geologist (musician)|Brian Weitz (Geologist)]]<br />[[Deakin (musician)|Josh Dibb (Deakin)]]
}}

'''Animal Collective''' is an [[experimental]] [[psychedelic]] band originally from [[Baltimore, Maryland]], currently based in New York City. Animal Collective consists of [[Avey Tare]] (David Portner), [[Panda Bear (musician)|Panda Bear]] (Noah Lennox), [[Deakin/Deacon (musician)|Deakin]] (Josh Dibb), and [[Geologist (musician)|Geologist]] (Brian Weitz). Records released under the name Animal Collective may include contributions from any or all of these members; the lineup is not uniform. The band members met in school and started recording together in various forms of collaboration from a young age.<ref name="wheeter post">[http://rerz.net/ac/messages/viewtopic.php?p=28255 Collected Animals] Post by Dave Portner under the user name "wheeter", December 5, 2006</ref> The group also runs the record label [[Paw Tracks]] on which they have released their own material as well as that of other artists.<ref>[http://www.identitytheory.com/audio/ross_animal.php identity theory mmusic] Band interview from August 2005</ref>

==History==
===Origins===
Animal Collective grew out of childhood friendships in [[Baltimore County]].<ref>Nasrallah, Dimitri . [http://exclaim.ca/articles/multiarticlesub.aspx?csid1=114&csid2=778&fid1=27343 "On the cover - Animal Collective - Flux Capacity"], ''[[Exclaim!]]'', September 2007.</ref> Noah Lennox and Josh Dibb met in the second grade at the [[Waldorf School of Baltimore]] and became good friends.<ref name="city paper">Harvell, Jess. [http://www.citypaper.com/music/story.asp?id=11022 "Out Of The Woods: Animal Collective Beats A Path From Baltimore County To Indie Fame"], ''[[Baltimore City Paper]]'', October 19, 2005. Retrieved on July 5, 2010.</ref> Lennox went away to a [[Waldorf education|Waldorf]] high school in [[Pennsylvania]], while Dibb attended [[Park School of Baltimore|The Park School of Baltimore]], that David Portner attended since grade school. Brian Weitz moved from [[Philadelphia]] to [[Baltimore County]] in 1993, attended the same school and became friends with Portner.<ref name="city paper" /> According to Lennox, they attended "progressive" schools that emphasized creativity, imagination and artistic self-expression as part of "a complete kind of education".<ref name="mother nature">[http://reynoldsretro.blogspot.com/2009/01/animal-collective-feels-directors-cut.html MOTHER NATURE'S SONS: Animal Collective and Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti] by Simon Reynolds, The Wire, 2005</ref> Weitz and Portner started playing music together when they were 15 because of their shared love of the band [[Pavement (band)|Pavement]] and horror movies. Their musical range included cover songs by [[Pavement (band)|Pavement]] and [[The Cure]] as well as the songs "[[Poison (Bell Biv DeVoe song)|Poison]]" by [[Bell Biv DeVoe]] and "[[Seasons In The Sun]]" by [[Terry Jacks]].<ref name="wheeter post" /> When both met Dibb later in High School, they started an indie rock band called Automine with schoolmates Brendan Fowler (a.k.a. [[BARR]]) and David Shpritz, being the only ones they knew who wrote own songs. “We [once] set up a show with four bands—bands that were different formations of us”, Portner remembered in an Interview with ''[[Baltimore City Paper]]''. At that time, the group did not have any contact to the music scene in Baltimore and "was more about the back porch. They are not considered as real music."<ref name="city paper" />

In 1995, Automine self-released their first and only record, the 7-inch-single ''Padington Band''. Around that time, they also had their first experiences with psychedelic drugs like [[Lysergic acid diethylamide|LSD]] and started to improvise while playing music.<ref name="wheeter post" /> When Portner was 16, he wrote and performed the song "Penny Dreadfuls" with Automine, which later appeared on the first Animal Collective album ''[[Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished]]''.

They started to discover psychedelic and sound music like [[Noggin (band)|Noggin]] as well as [[Krautrock]] related bands like [[Silver Apples]] and [[Can (band)|Can]]. Meanwhile, Dibb had introduced Lennox to Portner and Weitz and the four of them played music in different combinations and often solo, producing lots of home recordings, swapping them and sharing ideas. Using a drum machine for the first time, Weitz and Portner started a duo called Wendy Darling, whose sound was inspired by soundtracks of horror movies like [[The Texas Chain Saw Massacre]] and [[The Shining (film)|The Shining]], especially [[György Ligeti]] and [[Krzysztof Penderecki]].<ref name="wheeter post"/><ref name="mother nature" /> Portner remembers:

{{cquote|We had never heard so-called experimental music at the time, we didn’t know that people made music with textures and pure sound. So we started doing that ourselves in high school, walls of drones with guitars and delay pedals and us screaming into mics.<ref name="mother nature" />}}

In 1997, Lennox and Dibb both went off to college in the [[Boston]] area ([[Boston University]] and [[Brandeis University]]), while Portner and Weitz attended schools in New York City ([[NYU]] and [[Columbia University]]).<ref name="city paper" /> Lennox and Dibb assembled Lennox's debut album, ''[[Panda Bear (album)|Panda Bear]]'', during this time from the [[multitude]] of [[recordings]] Lennox had made in the previous years and established their own label, [[Paw Tracks|Soccer Star Records]], to release it.

===''Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished''===
Abhorring the new life as a student at NYU, Portner, along with Weitz, returned to Maryland every summer to meet Lennox and Dibb and play music together. At that time Portner was also working on a record, which would eventually become ''[[Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished]]''. Portner asked Lennox to play drums on the record and they recorded them along with piano and acoustic guitars in the summer of 1999. The rest of the year, Portner returned to Maryland on weekends to record overdubs and finish the mixing.<ref>[http://rerz.net/ac/messages/viewtopic.php?p=20827&highlight=#20827 Collected Animals] Post by Dave Portner under the user name "wheeter", August 10, 2006</ref> It was finally released in the following summer under the name ''Avey Tare and Panda Bear''. Soccer Star morphed into the Animal label, with the intention of putting out music that came from the four musicians.

In parallel with his environmental policy and marine biology studies, Weitz hosted a noise show at WKCR, Columbia’s college radio station. On weekends, he and Portner borrowed avant-garde music records and listened to them all night at Weitz' dorm room which rapidly broadened their musical horizon.<ref name="mother nature" />

In the summer of 2000, the four friends spent several months at Portner's apartment in downtown New York City intensely playing music together using antiquated synthesizers, acoustic guitars, and household objects. According to Lennox, in this summer the basis for all later Animal Collective's music was created:
{{cquote|[...] everything since then has been a variation of what we explored that summer. Dave and I had already made [[Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished|the Spirit They’re Gone record]], but during the summer we really cracked the egg open. It seemed like we could go anywhere we wanted after that.<ref name="mother nature" />}}
However, all recordings of this period were stolen when Portner changed apartments and packed up the car the night before he moved.

While studying, Dave Portner organized shows at [[New York University]] for a while. As he had class together with [[Eric Copeland]], he organized a show for his band [[Black Dice]] and eventually became friends with him. In 2000, ''[[Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished]]'' was finished, Lennox and Dibb left school in Boston and moved to New York and the group's music became much more [[collaborative]] in nature. After introducing Lennox to Copeland, Portner and Lennox played their first show together in New York at ''The Cooler'' with [[Dogg and Pony]], [[The Rapture (band)|The Rapture]] and [[Black Dice]].<ref>[http://www.themilkfactory.co.uk/interviews/pandabeariw.htm Interview with Panda Bear], The Milk Factory, April 2005</ref> That was in late summer of 2000.

This was also the first time they wore makeup and masks, which later became a prominent characteristic of the group's live performances. From thereon, Portner wore a mask for the first two years of the group performing. Lennox wore a Panda hood on his head and later put face paint on; throughout the Europe tour in early 2004 he wore a white wig. Dibb performed masked during the ''[[Here Comes the Indian]]'' tour. On the Australia tour in November 2006 and inspired by [[Halloween]], they wore masks for the last time.<ref>[http://rerz.net/ac/messages/viewtopic.php?p=103313&highlight=aussie#103313 Collected Animals] Post by Deakin, January 9, 2008</ref> <br />According to Portner, the reason for disguising was to "help us be more relaxed and find an easier place in that other world we wanted people to join us in."<ref name="Collected Animals">[http://rerz.net/ac/messages/viewtopic.php?p=103168&highlight=flowers+masks#103168 Collected Animals] Post by Dave Portner under the user name "wheeter", January 9, 2008</ref> They eventually stopped because they felt like it could become "too gimmicky"<ref name="Collected Animals"/> and distract from the music, although Weitz still sports a head lamp at live performances, as he did from the beginning.

===''Danse Manatee''—''Here Comes the Indian''===
After Portner and Lennox had played clubs around New York in twos, Weitz came on board in the end of 2000 and began performing with them. Much of the live material from this time would eventually end up on ''[[Danse Manatee]]'' (Catsup Plate). ''[[Danse Manatee]]'' was released in 2001 under the name of ''Avey Tare, Panda Bear and Geologist''. This process of preparing material in the live setting and then recording and often retiring songs would become a hallmark of Animal Collective.

Notably, the close friendship with [[Black Dice]] has been a major influence throughout the group's career. In the summer of 2001, [[Black Dice]] took them as support on their first tour, which was captured on the 2002 live album ''[[Hollinndagain]]''. It was released by St. Ives, a boutique label run by [[Secretly Canadian]] which releases limited edition vinyl only records. Limited to 300 copies, each of which featured a one-of-a-kind handmade cover, ''Hollinndagain'' is among the rarest of Animal Collective artifacts. It was re-released, both on CD and vinyl, on October 31, 2006 through the [[Paw Tracks]] label.

At this point, Dibb began to perform with the group. The next album to be released was ''[[Campfire Songs (album)|Campfire Songs]]'', again working with Catsup Plate in 2003. The ''Campfire Songs'' concept and some of the material dated back to the earliest Avey Tare and Panda Bear shows in New York. Recorded live in 2001 on Portner's aunt's screened-in porch in [[Monkton, Maryland]], the record is one take of five songs played straight through.<ref name="city paper" /> Attempting to make a record as warm and inviting as a [[campfire]], the band recorded their performance straight to [[minidisc]], with one recorder outside to grab the ambient sound of the environment. Field recordings of the surrounding area were also added. The original album is out of print but Paw Tracks reissued it on January 26, 2010.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.paw-tracks.com/news.html |title=news |publisher=paw tracks |date= |accessdate=August 18, 2010}}</ref>

After this recording session they started to work on new material which was later released on ''[[Here Comes the Indian]]'' and they were faced with some serious problems within the group. In early 2002, they went on their first big tour which took them to the South of the US and turned out to be "pretty brutal [...]. "We all lost our minds on that tour", Portner recalls.<ref name="mother nature" /> Right before their next tour in summer, Weitz got the message that he was accepted to his first choice graduate school in Arizona. After three chaotic days on the road with their tour van breaking down, equipment getting damaged bundled with a lack of money, the tour was about to be cancelled. "At that point we all knew we'd get back from tour, record the songs, and then we needed space from each other, and we still had more than 2 weeks left on the road", Weitz remembers on the Collected Animals Board.<ref name="Collected Animals, Post by Brian Weitz, May 12, 2006">[http://rerz.net/ac/messages/viewtopic.php?p=16347&highlight=job#16347 Collected Animals] Post by Brian Weitz under the user name "veyesor", May 12, 2006</ref> When they arrived in San Francisco, he eventually decided in favor of school and left the group for one year.

In 2002, Animal Collective also attained notoriety for their appearance on [[Arto Lindsay]]'s album ''Invoke'' ([[Righteous Babe Records]]).

Worrying that ''Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist'' would be too long-winded a moniker, and with record companies advising that a unifying name would be necessary for the marketplace, the group decided to adopt a catch-all name. Using their old label of Animal as inspiration they picked "Animal Collective". This formation was to be different from a straightforward band, giving the musicians the freedom to work in combinations of two to four, as dictated by the project at hand or their mood. Their first entry under this name was ''[[Here Comes the Indian]]'', which was released in 2003 by their newly formed record label, Paw Tracks. Paw Tracks was formed with Todd Hyman from Carpark records. Animal Collective makes decisions on what Paw Tracks is to release, while Hyman runs the day-to-day operations. The group was happy to find someone like Hyman, who had experience running a label and was dedicated to the group's music; the Animal label was more or less abandoned upon the formation of Paw Tracks. ''Here Comes the Indian'' was the first record to feature all four of Animal Collective and its dense textures and energetic performances widened the exposure of the group significantly.

After the two releases in 2003 attracted much attention, [[Black Dice]] introduced the group to the [[Fat Cat Records]] label which eventually ended up with the group beginning a relationship with their new admirers. The first Fat Cat release from the Collective was a double disc package of ''Spirit'' and ''Danse Manatee'', which were previously only available or well-known in and around New York.

===''Sung Tongs''—''Strawberry Jam''===
After the dense soundscapes of ''Here Comes the Indian'', Portner and Lennox decided to concentrate on more stripped-down material. Each of them began composing material and they performed as a duo usually with just acoustic guitars, a single drum, some effects and their voices. The duo toured the world for the better part of a year with this new material, opening for [[múm]] and [[Four Tet]] among others, before retreating to Lamar, Colorado to record the material with [[Rusty Santos]], a New York musician and friend. The result was ''[[Sung Tongs]]'', released on [[Fat Cat Records]] in 2004. ''Sung Tongs'' received a great deal of critical acclaim for its strong harmonies, exotic textures, hummable melodies and free-wheeling nature.

In the meantime, Brian Weitz returned from Arizona and he and Josh Dibb joined the duo again. All four started writing new songs together which finally ended up on their 2005 release [[Feels]]. Animal Collective, as the duo of Panda Bear & Deakin (a.k.a. Noah's Ark), toured in Japan for the first time in February 2004 with Carpark Records' artists [[Greg Davis (musician)|Greg Davis]] & Ogurusu Norihide. In early 2004, they started touring with their regular setlists including exclusively post-''Sung-Tongs'' material, except for "We Tigers" and "Who Could Win a Rabbit?", which have been performed regularly up to the present. During their Europe tour, the group was introduced to [[Vashti Bunyan]] in [[Edinburgh]], Scotland by [[Kieran Hebden]] (AKA Four Tet), who had recently played in Bunyan's band. Being fans of the cult folk singer's 1970 album ''[[Just Another Diamond Day]]'', the group had dinner with Bunyan and asked her to collaborate on some recordings. The group encouraged her to sing lead vocals on three songs left over from the ''Sung Tongs'' era, released on the ''[[Prospect Hummer]]'' EP in early 2005. Weitz, who had started a day job in early 2004, could not join this tour and therefore missed the recording session with Bunyan, but contributed one instrumental song to the EP.<ref name="Collected Animals, Post by Brian Weitz, May 12, 2006"/>
The release in 2005 led to a [[Fat Cat Records]] signing for [[Vashti Bunyan]], who finally wrote, recorded and released a [[Lookaftering|second album]], ending a thirty year hiatus.

In October 2005, Animal Collective released their highly anticipated sixth album. Again the work of all four members of the band, ''[[Feels]]'' was recorded in Seattle with [[Climax Golden Twins]]' Scott Colburn, known for his work with the [[Sun City Girls]]. Following the release of ''Feels'', Animal Collective mounted their most extensive tour, which lasted into the Fall of 2006 and saw them visit Australia and New Zealand for the first time in addition to many European festivals and North American dates, including a headline set in the Carling Tent at the [[Reading and Leeds festival]].

One of the group's hallmarks is to perform mostly new songs, sometimes up to two years before they are finally recorded. Accordingly, they debuted several new tracks during their 2005 and 2006 tours, then only known by their working titles: "Reverend Green", "Fireworks" (formerly "Allman Vibe" and also "Bottle Rocket"), "Chores", "#1", "Safer", "Peace Bone", "Cuckoo" and "Street Flash." Most of these appear on their 2007 album [[Strawberry Jam (album)|Strawberry Jam]], some under slightly altered titles.

In the summer of 2006, [[Deakin (musician)|Dibb's]] father died which led to a show breakup after only two songs at [[Rock Herk]] Festival on July 15.<ref>[http://rerz.net/ac/messages/viewtopic.php?p=19322&highlight=belgium#19322 Collected Animals], July 15, 2006</ref>

In the late fall of 2006, Animal Collective released ''[[People (Animal Collective EP)|People]]'' in Australia as a 7" on their Australian label Spunk Records, and worldwide as a 12" and CD [[Extended play|EP]] in early 2007 on FatCat Records. It contains three studio songs "People", "Tiwkid", and "My Favorite Colors", as well as a live version of "People".[[File:Animalcollective1.jpg‎|thumb|Animal Collective performing live on December 27, 2006]]

In January 2007, Domino Recording Company announced that they would be releasing the new, then still unnamed, Animal Collective album. During the recording process in early 2007 member [[Deakin (musician)|Josh Dibb]] announced via the Collected Animals forum that he would take a break from touring caused by a "myriad of personal reasons"<ref>[http://rerz.net/ac/messages/viewtopic.php?p=33326&highlight=#33326 Collected Animals] Post by Josh Dibb under the user name "deakin", January 30, 2007</ref> until fall. Since then, he has not returned and Animal Collective performed live as a three-piece from that time until late 2009. <br />On July 4, 2007, ''[[Strawberry Jam]]'' was leaked online. The album was released in the U.S. on September 11, 2007 and received immediate praise, due in part to a strong focus on vocals.{{Citation needed|date=February 2009}} Songs such as "For Reverend Green" serve as a showcase for the dynamic vocal range of [[Avey Tare]]. Further, the album closer 'Derek' is similar to the sound found on Panda Bear's ''[[Person Pitch]]'', which was released on March 20, 2007. A series of EPs and singles led up to that release, beginning with "[[I'm Not/Comfy in Nautica|I'm Not]]" b/w "[[I'm Not/Comfy in Nautica|Comfy in Nautica]]" on United Acoustic Recordings (UUAR), "[[Bro's]]", a 12" on Fat Cat, and, most recently, Carrots, a split with [[Excepter]] on Paw Tracks (all of these appeared on the album). The album received much acclaim, including Album of the Year from [[Pitchfork Media]] and [[Tiny Mix Tapes]].<ref>[http://www.tinymixtapes.com/2007-Tiny-Mix-Tapes-Favorite Tiny Mix Tapes ~ Staff Features] Tiny Mix Tapes Favorite Albums of 2007</ref>

On April 27, 2007 Portner released an album under the Avey Tare moniker, [[Pullhair Rubeye]], with his wife [[Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir|Kría Brekkan]], formerly of the Icelandic band [[múm]]. The album is noted for the tracks being reversed. It was received very poorly by some critics and fans.

===''Merriweather Post Pavilion''===
The band toured extensively throughout 2007, completing several American and European tours. Beginning in May 2007 the band debuted a brand new batch of post-''Strawberry Jam'' live songs. These songs were written in an intense two-week session before the tour, months before the release of ''Strawberry Jam''. On October 5, 2007, the band, in its full four-man line up (opposed to its three-man lineup performances in 2007 and 2008) made their national television debut on [[Late Night with Conan O'Brien]] performing the song "#1" in support of ''Strawberry Jam''.

On March 12, 2008, ''[[Water Curses]]'' EP leaked and was released on May 5, 2008. On April 9, the song "Water Curses" was released by itself digitally.
[[File:Animal Collective-3.jpg‎|thumb|left|Animal Collective performing live in Prague on October 14, 2008]]
In early 2008<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dominorecordco.com/uk/news/10-10-08/merriweather-post-pavilion/ |title=Domino &#124; News &#124; Merriweather Post Pavilion |publisher=Dominorecordco.com |date= |accessdate=August 18, 2010}}</ref> and still as a three piece, the collective entered the studio to record tracks for their eighth studio album. The album, entitled ''[[Merriweather Post Pavilion (album)|Merriweather Post Pavilion]],'' was officially announced on the band's official website on October 5, 2008<ref name="myanimalhome.net">{{cite web|url=http://www.myanimalhome.net |title=Guys Eyes |publisher=Myanimalhome.net |date= |accessdate=August 18, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://newsroom.mtv.com/2008/08/11/the-roots-animal-collective-kings-of-leon-and-more-enjoy-disorganized-spirit-of-all-points-west/ |title=The Roots, Animal Collective, Kings of Leon And More Enjoy “Disorganized” Spirit Of All Points West » MTV Newsroom |publisher=Newsroom.mtv.com |date=August 11, 2008 |accessdate=August 18, 2010}}</ref> and was released January 6, 2009.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.idiomag.com/artist/animal_collective/#/48441/1/ |title=Animal Collective Magazine - News, Reviews, Albums and Videos |publisher=Idiomag.com |date= |accessdate=August 18, 2010}}</ref> The first single released from the album was "[[My Girls]]". Even before the record was released, several music magazines like [[Fact Magazine (UK)]] started to refer to it as "The Best Album of 2009",{{Citation needed|date=February 2009}} while [[Uncut Magazine]] called it "one of the landmark american albums of the century so far".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.uncut.net/music/animal_collective/reviews/12630 |title=Album review: Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion - Review |publisher=Uncut.co.uk |date= |accessdate=August 18, 2010}}</ref> The band set to tour throughout Europe and US in 2009, notably being one of the headlining acts at September's [[All Tomorrow's Parties (music festival)|ATP New York]] Festival, where Lennox also performed a solo set as [[Panda Bear]].

Starting with the first tour dates in early 2009 the band introduced a new song, "What Would I Want? Sky", to the audience. This song was also part of a BBC Session recording. The May 2009 tour saw the debut of "Bleed". These songs would later be put on their ''[[Fall Be Kind]]'' EP

On May 7, 2009 the band made their second television appearance on [[The Late Show with David Letterman]], performing the single "[[Summertime Clothes]]" from ''Merriweather Post Pavilion''. The appearance included the regular three-man lineup indicative of their 2007-2009 tours, which excluded Josh Dibb. Four dancers draped in sheets also appeared on-stage behind the band, a first in their live performances. The video accompanied the release of the single on July 7, 2009, also featuring remixes by Zomby (Hyperdub), Dâm-Funk (Stones Throw), and L.D.

In an interview with Pitchfork Media, Portner announced the last single from the album would be "[[Brother Sport]]" which was released November 9 on vinyl with the live B-side "Bleeding".
In addition to the two singles, a video for the song "In The Flowers" was posted on Animal Collective's web site in mid November. The video was directed by [[Abby Portner]], Avey Tare's sister.<ref name="myanimalhome.net"/>
The release of the [[Fall Be Kind]] EP followed on December 8, which includes leftovers from ''Merriweather Post Pavilion'' "Graze" and "I Think I Can", as well as previously BBC-recorded "What Would I Want? Sky", which contains the first ever legal [[Grateful Dead]] Sample, and "On A Highway". Also included was the recently toured "Bleed".<ref name="Animal Collective's Avey Tare Reveals All About New EP, Film, Tour Hiatus">[http://pitchfork.com/news/36753-animal-collectives-avey-tare-reveals-all-about-new-ep-film-tour-hiatus Pitchfork Media: News] "Animal Collective's Avey Tare Reveals All About New EP, Film, Tour Hiatus", October 9, 2009</ref>

''Merriweather Post Pavilion'' was voted by readers across Canada as the #2 experimental<ref>[http://exclaim.ca/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=140&csid2=844&fid1=44178 Top Avant-Garde/Experimental albums in [[Exclaim!]] 2009 readers poll] Exclaim.ca</ref> and #7 electro album of 2009 in [[Exclaim!]] magazine.<ref>[http://exclaim.ca/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=140&csid2=844&fid1=44124 Top Electronic albums in [[Exclaim!]] 2009 readers poll] Exclaim.ca</ref>

===''ODDSAC'' and new material===
For four years, the band had been working on [[ODDSAC]], a visual record, with Danny Perez, who directed music videos for the band's "[[Who Could Win a Rabbit]]" and "[[Summertime Clothes]]" singles. The movie featured visuals which were developed and edited simultaneously with the music they recorded for it. Panda Bear stated they would like to "create a movie that would have visuals similar to what somebody would see if they closed their eyes while listening to Animal Collective's music". Weitz further added that "it's the most experimental stuff we've ever done." According to Portner, "Maybe here and there, in our minds, there's some weird narratives going on. The whole thing cohesively doesn't have one narrative; it's more of a visual or psychedelic thing. There are parts that are almost completely abstract, and there are parts that are little bit more live-action."

The film premiered at the 2010 [[Sundance Film Festival]] on January 26.<ref>[http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2010/01/27/animal-collectives-oddsac-debuts-at-sundance/ ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref> [[ODDSAC]] was screened in theaters in North America and Europe in spring 2010, followed by a DVD release in August.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oddsac.com/ |title=ODDSAC |publisher=ODDSAC |date= |accessdate=August 18, 2010}}</ref>

In January 2010 [[LAS Magazine]] posted an article about alternative music financing that points out Deakin's initiative to have fans pay for a trip to perform at Africa's Festival in the Desert.<ref>[http://www.lostatsea.net/feature.phtml?fid=19012940184b602520166ab LAS Kickstart My Art article]</ref>

Aside from touring New Zealand and Australia in December 2009, the band planned a break from their two years of touring to focus more on creating and writing music.<ref name="Animal Collective's Avey Tare Reveals All About New EP, Film, Tour Hiatus"/> On November 13, Panda Bear announced a small European tour of his solo material in early 2010. He also stated that the band was on a touring hiatus to spend more time with their families.<ref>[http://pitchfork.com/news/37116-panda-bear-announces-solo-tour Pitchfork Media ~ News] "Panda Bear Announces Solo Tour", November 13, 2009</ref>

On March 4, 2010, Avey Tare, Deakin and Geologist collaborated once again with Danny Perez in the audio-visual performance piece ''Transverse Temporal Gyrus'' at the [[Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum]] in New York City, celebrating its 50th anniversary.<ref>[http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/press-room/releases/3257-animalcollective-release Guggenheim ~ Releases] "Guggenheim Presents Animal Collective and Danny Perez Performance", February 17, 2010</ref>

During several interviews in the second half of 2010, Lennox and Portner mentioned plans for Animal Collective's next album, including writing all together in the same location<ref>[http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2010/09/an_interview_w_44.html Brooklyn Vegan] "an interview w/ Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear (about the album release date, status of Animal Collective & more)", September 7, 2010</ref> and the possibility of recording the new songs before taking them on tour,<ref>[http://pitchfork.com/news/39774-avey-tare-talks-new-solo-album-animal-collectives-future-crocodiles/ Pitchfork ~ News] "Avey Tare Talks New Solo Album, Animal Collective's Future, Crocodiles", August 19, 2010</ref> neither of which had happened for a long time. Portner revealed in October that the band would soon be moving back to their home county of Baltimore to write music there.<ref>[http://www.self-titledmag.com/home/2010/10/19/the-self-titled-interview-avey-tare-of-animal-collective/ self-titled magazine :: self-titled daily] "THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: Avey Tare of Animal Collective", October 19, 2010</ref>

Near the end of October 2010, [[All Tomorrow's Parties (music festival)|All Tomorrow's Parties]] announced that Animal Collective would be curating and headlining their UK festival in May 2011.<ref>[http://www.atpfestival.com/events/atpanimalcollective/news/1010270022.php ATP: All Tomorrow's Parties] "ANIMAL COLLECTIVE TO CURATE ATP UK IN MAY 2011 - ON SALE FRIDAY", October 27, 2010</ref> It was confirmed in late [[November]] [[2010]] that Deakin would be rejoining the group for this show as well as the rest of the shows of their new tour.<ref name="pitchfork1">http://pitchfork.com/news/40842-deakin-back-in-animal-collective/</ref> Before starting their first European tour of 2011, all four members of the band had a short tour of California leading up to an appearance at the [[Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival|Coachella Music Festival]].<ref>http://pitchfork.com/news/41310-animal-collective-announce-us-dates/</ref> At the shows, the band mostly played their newly written songs that were yet to be recorded.<ref>[http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/7950-panda-bear/ Pitchfork] "interviews: Panda Bear"</ref><ref>[http://www.spin.com/articles/animal-collective-debut-powerful-new-songs Spin magazine] "ANIMAL COLLECTIVE Debut Powerful New Songs", April 17, 2011</ref>

On the 18th of April it was announced that Animal Collective would have a concert on July 9, 2011 at [[Merriweather Post Pavilion]], the namesake of their eighth studio album.<ref>[http://twitter.com/MerriweatherPP/status/59995977976791040 Twitter: Merriweather Post] "JUST ANNOUNCED at @MerriweatherPP : Animal Collective on July 9th!", April 18, 2011</ref>

==Members==
* '''[[Avey Tare]]''' (David Portner; vocals, guitar, samples, keys, percussion) – Name comes from "tearing" apart the name David (Davey), hence Avey Tare. It is not related to the word "avatar". Avey Tare is known for his out of key vocals as well as his addiction to obscure drugs. Many critics have urged the other members of Animal Collective to leave Avey Tare, so that the band can reach it's full potential. Panda Bear stated that, "Dude, Avey is sometimes really gay, he like to bang dudes sometimes after gigs. I think he is like under the influence of psychedelic drugs which make him beleive that the men he is engaging in sex with are like, these drug monsters from another galaxy."<ref name="freewilliamsburg.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/archives/2005/02/the_animal_coll.html |title=The Animal Collective |publisher=FREEwilliamsburg |date=February 23, 2005 |accessdate=August 18, 2010}}</ref>
* '''[[Panda Bear (musician)|Panda Bear]]''' (Noah Lennox; vocals, percussion, samples, guitar) – Name comes from the panda he drew on the first set of songs he ever wrote.<ref name=themilkfactory>[http://www.themilkfactory.co.uk/interviews/pandabeariw.htm Interview], ''The Milk Factory'', March 2005.</ref>
* '''[[Deakin (musician)|Deakin]]''' (Josh Dibb; synthesizer, guitar, vocals) – Name comes from letters he used to write to other members under the name Conrad Deacon. He has used different spellings of the name on different albums: "Deaken" on ''[[Here Comes the Indian]]'', "Deakin" on ''[[Feels]]'' and "Deacon" on ''[[Strawberry Jam]]'' and the single "[[Grass (song)|Grass]]". Having been absent from the band's tours since early 2007, he began a solo tour in 2010 (using the spelling "Deakin" at the request of fellow Baltimorean musician [[Dan Deacon]], in order to avoid confusion).<ref>[http://www.bmoremusic.net/2010/05/interview-deakin-josh-dibb.html], ''Bmore Musically Informed'', May 2010.</ref> He rejoined the band in [[2011]].<ref name="pitchfork1"/>
* '''[[Geologist (musician)|Geologist]]''' (Brian Weitz; electronics, samples, vocals) – Name comes from the headlamp he wears in order to see the electronics during live shows.<ref>Explained on WNYC's "Spinning On Air," July 30, 2004, second hour.</ref> Someone mistakenly assumed Brian studied geology in college; however, he studied marine biology.<ref name="freewilliamsburg.com"/>

==Discography==
{{Main|Animal Collective discography}}

* ''[[Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished]]'' (2000)
* ''[[Danse Manatee]]'' (2001)
* ''[[Campfire Songs (album)|Campfire Songs]]'' (2003)
* ''[[Here Comes the Indian]]'' (2003)
* ''[[Sung Tongs]]'' (2004)
* ''[[Feels]]'' (2005)
* ''[[Strawberry Jam]]'' (2007)
* ''[[Merriweather Post Pavilion (album)|Merriweather Post Pavilion]]'' (2009)
* ''[[ODDSAC]]'' (2010)
<!-- Studio albums only -->

==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}
^ [http://thefourohfive.com/articles/6261 The 405] :: The 405 "Animal Collective // The 405 Interview", May 10, 2011

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* {{official website|http://www.myanimalhome.net}}

{{Animal Collective}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Animal Collective}}
[[Category:American indie rock groups]]
[[Category:Musical groups established in 1999]]
[[Category:Musical groups from Baltimore, Maryland]]
[[Category:Neo-psychedelia groups]]

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Revision as of 18:57, 8 October 2011

Animal Collective
Animal Collective at the Seaport Music Festival at The Seaport, New York City, on June 1, 2007. David Portner & Noah Lennox (right).
Animal Collective at the Seaport Music Festival at The Seaport, New York City, on June 1, 2007. David Portner & Noah Lennox (right).
Background information
OriginBaltimore, Maryland, United States
GenresNew Weird America
Neo-psychedelia
Experimental music
Years active1999–present
LabelsAnimal, Catsup Plate, St. Ives, Paw Tracks, Fat Cat, Domino
MembersDavid Portner (Avey Tare)
Noah Lennox (Panda Bear)
Brian Weitz (Geologist)
Josh Dibb (Deakin)
Websitemyanimalhome.net

Animal Collective is an experimental psychedelic band originally from Baltimore, Maryland, currently based in New York City. Animal Collective consists of Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Deakin (Josh Dibb), and Geologist (Brian Weitz). Records released under the name Animal Collective may include contributions from any or all of these members; the lineup is not uniform. The band members met in school and started recording together in various forms of collaboration from a young age.[1] The group also runs the record label Paw Tracks on which they have released their own material as well as that of other artists.[2]

History

Origins

Animal Collective grew out of childhood friendships in Baltimore County.[3] Noah Lennox and Josh Dibb met in the second grade at the Waldorf School of Baltimore and became good friends.[4] Lennox went away to a Waldorf high school in Pennsylvania, while Dibb attended The Park School of Baltimore, that David Portner attended since grade school. Brian Weitz moved from Philadelphia to Baltimore County in 1993, attended the same school and became friends with Portner.[4] According to Lennox, they attended "progressive" schools that emphasized creativity, imagination and artistic self-expression as part of "a complete kind of education".[5] Weitz and Portner started playing music together when they were 15 because of their shared love of the band Pavement and horror movies. Their musical range included cover songs by Pavement and The Cure as well as the songs "Poison" by Bell Biv DeVoe and "Seasons In The Sun" by Terry Jacks.[1] When both met Dibb later in High School, they started an indie rock band called Automine with schoolmates Brendan Fowler (a.k.a. BARR) and David Shpritz, being the only ones they knew who wrote own songs. “We [once] set up a show with four bands—bands that were different formations of us”, Portner remembered in an Interview with Baltimore City Paper. At that time, the group did not have any contact to the music scene in Baltimore and "was more about the back porch. They are not considered as real music."[4]

In 1995, Automine self-released their first and only record, the 7-inch-single Padington Band. Around that time, they also had their first experiences with psychedelic drugs like LSD and started to improvise while playing music.[1] When Portner was 16, he wrote and performed the song "Penny Dreadfuls" with Automine, which later appeared on the first Animal Collective album Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished.

They started to discover psychedelic and sound music like Noggin as well as Krautrock related bands like Silver Apples and Can. Meanwhile, Dibb had introduced Lennox to Portner and Weitz and the four of them played music in different combinations and often solo, producing lots of home recordings, swapping them and sharing ideas. Using a drum machine for the first time, Weitz and Portner started a duo called Wendy Darling, whose sound was inspired by soundtracks of horror movies like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Shining, especially György Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki.[1][5] Portner remembers:

We had never heard so-called experimental music at the time, we didn’t know that people made music with textures and pure sound. So we started doing that ourselves in high school, walls of drones with guitars and delay pedals and us screaming into mics.[5]

In 1997, Lennox and Dibb both went off to college in the Boston area (Boston University and Brandeis University), while Portner and Weitz attended schools in New York City (NYU and Columbia University).[4] Lennox and Dibb assembled Lennox's debut album, Panda Bear, during this time from the multitude of recordings Lennox had made in the previous years and established their own label, Soccer Star Records, to release it.

Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished

Abhorring the new life as a student at NYU, Portner, along with Weitz, returned to Maryland every summer to meet Lennox and Dibb and play music together. At that time Portner was also working on a record, which would eventually become Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished. Portner asked Lennox to play drums on the record and they recorded them along with piano and acoustic guitars in the summer of 1999. The rest of the year, Portner returned to Maryland on weekends to record overdubs and finish the mixing.[6] It was finally released in the following summer under the name Avey Tare and Panda Bear. Soccer Star morphed into the Animal label, with the intention of putting out music that came from the four musicians.

In parallel with his environmental policy and marine biology studies, Weitz hosted a noise show at WKCR, Columbia’s college radio station. On weekends, he and Portner borrowed avant-garde music records and listened to them all night at Weitz' dorm room which rapidly broadened their musical horizon.[5]

In the summer of 2000, the four friends spent several months at Portner's apartment in downtown New York City intensely playing music together using antiquated synthesizers, acoustic guitars, and household objects. According to Lennox, in this summer the basis for all later Animal Collective's music was created:

[...] everything since then has been a variation of what we explored that summer. Dave and I had already made the Spirit They’re Gone record, but during the summer we really cracked the egg open. It seemed like we could go anywhere we wanted after that.[5]

However, all recordings of this period were stolen when Portner changed apartments and packed up the car the night before he moved.

While studying, Dave Portner organized shows at New York University for a while. As he had class together with Eric Copeland, he organized a show for his band Black Dice and eventually became friends with him. In 2000, Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished was finished, Lennox and Dibb left school in Boston and moved to New York and the group's music became much more collaborative in nature. After introducing Lennox to Copeland, Portner and Lennox played their first show together in New York at The Cooler with Dogg and Pony, The Rapture and Black Dice.[7] That was in late summer of 2000.

This was also the first time they wore makeup and masks, which later became a prominent characteristic of the group's live performances. From thereon, Portner wore a mask for the first two years of the group performing. Lennox wore a Panda hood on his head and later put face paint on; throughout the Europe tour in early 2004 he wore a white wig. Dibb performed masked during the Here Comes the Indian tour. On the Australia tour in November 2006 and inspired by Halloween, they wore masks for the last time.[8]
According to Portner, the reason for disguising was to "help us be more relaxed and find an easier place in that other world we wanted people to join us in."[9] They eventually stopped because they felt like it could become "too gimmicky"[9] and distract from the music, although Weitz still sports a head lamp at live performances, as he did from the beginning.

Danse Manatee—Here Comes the Indian

After Portner and Lennox had played clubs around New York in twos, Weitz came on board in the end of 2000 and began performing with them. Much of the live material from this time would eventually end up on Danse Manatee (Catsup Plate). Danse Manatee was released in 2001 under the name of Avey Tare, Panda Bear and Geologist. This process of preparing material in the live setting and then recording and often retiring songs would become a hallmark of Animal Collective.

Notably, the close friendship with Black Dice has been a major influence throughout the group's career. In the summer of 2001, Black Dice took them as support on their first tour, which was captured on the 2002 live album Hollinndagain. It was released by St. Ives, a boutique label run by Secretly Canadian which releases limited edition vinyl only records. Limited to 300 copies, each of which featured a one-of-a-kind handmade cover, Hollinndagain is among the rarest of Animal Collective artifacts. It was re-released, both on CD and vinyl, on October 31, 2006 through the Paw Tracks label.

At this point, Dibb began to perform with the group. The next album to be released was Campfire Songs, again working with Catsup Plate in 2003. The Campfire Songs concept and some of the material dated back to the earliest Avey Tare and Panda Bear shows in New York. Recorded live in 2001 on Portner's aunt's screened-in porch in Monkton, Maryland, the record is one take of five songs played straight through.[4] Attempting to make a record as warm and inviting as a campfire, the band recorded their performance straight to minidisc, with one recorder outside to grab the ambient sound of the environment. Field recordings of the surrounding area were also added. The original album is out of print but Paw Tracks reissued it on January 26, 2010.[10]

After this recording session they started to work on new material which was later released on Here Comes the Indian and they were faced with some serious problems within the group. In early 2002, they went on their first big tour which took them to the South of the US and turned out to be "pretty brutal [...]. "We all lost our minds on that tour", Portner recalls.[5] Right before their next tour in summer, Weitz got the message that he was accepted to his first choice graduate school in Arizona. After three chaotic days on the road with their tour van breaking down, equipment getting damaged bundled with a lack of money, the tour was about to be cancelled. "At that point we all knew we'd get back from tour, record the songs, and then we needed space from each other, and we still had more than 2 weeks left on the road", Weitz remembers on the Collected Animals Board.[11] When they arrived in San Francisco, he eventually decided in favor of school and left the group for one year.

In 2002, Animal Collective also attained notoriety for their appearance on Arto Lindsay's album Invoke (Righteous Babe Records).

Worrying that Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist would be too long-winded a moniker, and with record companies advising that a unifying name would be necessary for the marketplace, the group decided to adopt a catch-all name. Using their old label of Animal as inspiration they picked "Animal Collective". This formation was to be different from a straightforward band, giving the musicians the freedom to work in combinations of two to four, as dictated by the project at hand or their mood. Their first entry under this name was Here Comes the Indian, which was released in 2003 by their newly formed record label, Paw Tracks. Paw Tracks was formed with Todd Hyman from Carpark records. Animal Collective makes decisions on what Paw Tracks is to release, while Hyman runs the day-to-day operations. The group was happy to find someone like Hyman, who had experience running a label and was dedicated to the group's music; the Animal label was more or less abandoned upon the formation of Paw Tracks. Here Comes the Indian was the first record to feature all four of Animal Collective and its dense textures and energetic performances widened the exposure of the group significantly.

After the two releases in 2003 attracted much attention, Black Dice introduced the group to the Fat Cat Records label which eventually ended up with the group beginning a relationship with their new admirers. The first Fat Cat release from the Collective was a double disc package of Spirit and Danse Manatee, which were previously only available or well-known in and around New York.

Sung Tongs—Strawberry Jam

After the dense soundscapes of Here Comes the Indian, Portner and Lennox decided to concentrate on more stripped-down material. Each of them began composing material and they performed as a duo usually with just acoustic guitars, a single drum, some effects and their voices. The duo toured the world for the better part of a year with this new material, opening for múm and Four Tet among others, before retreating to Lamar, Colorado to record the material with Rusty Santos, a New York musician and friend. The result was Sung Tongs, released on Fat Cat Records in 2004. Sung Tongs received a great deal of critical acclaim for its strong harmonies, exotic textures, hummable melodies and free-wheeling nature.

In the meantime, Brian Weitz returned from Arizona and he and Josh Dibb joined the duo again. All four started writing new songs together which finally ended up on their 2005 release Feels. Animal Collective, as the duo of Panda Bear & Deakin (a.k.a. Noah's Ark), toured in Japan for the first time in February 2004 with Carpark Records' artists Greg Davis & Ogurusu Norihide. In early 2004, they started touring with their regular setlists including exclusively post-Sung-Tongs material, except for "We Tigers" and "Who Could Win a Rabbit?", which have been performed regularly up to the present. During their Europe tour, the group was introduced to Vashti Bunyan in Edinburgh, Scotland by Kieran Hebden (AKA Four Tet), who had recently played in Bunyan's band. Being fans of the cult folk singer's 1970 album Just Another Diamond Day, the group had dinner with Bunyan and asked her to collaborate on some recordings. The group encouraged her to sing lead vocals on three songs left over from the Sung Tongs era, released on the Prospect Hummer EP in early 2005. Weitz, who had started a day job in early 2004, could not join this tour and therefore missed the recording session with Bunyan, but contributed one instrumental song to the EP.[11] The release in 2005 led to a Fat Cat Records signing for Vashti Bunyan, who finally wrote, recorded and released a second album, ending a thirty year hiatus.

In October 2005, Animal Collective released their highly anticipated sixth album. Again the work of all four members of the band, Feels was recorded in Seattle with Climax Golden Twins' Scott Colburn, known for his work with the Sun City Girls. Following the release of Feels, Animal Collective mounted their most extensive tour, which lasted into the Fall of 2006 and saw them visit Australia and New Zealand for the first time in addition to many European festivals and North American dates, including a headline set in the Carling Tent at the Reading and Leeds festival.

One of the group's hallmarks is to perform mostly new songs, sometimes up to two years before they are finally recorded. Accordingly, they debuted several new tracks during their 2005 and 2006 tours, then only known by their working titles: "Reverend Green", "Fireworks" (formerly "Allman Vibe" and also "Bottle Rocket"), "Chores", "#1", "Safer", "Peace Bone", "Cuckoo" and "Street Flash." Most of these appear on their 2007 album Strawberry Jam, some under slightly altered titles.

In the summer of 2006, Dibb's father died which led to a show breakup after only two songs at Rock Herk Festival on July 15.[12]

In the late fall of 2006, Animal Collective released People in Australia as a 7" on their Australian label Spunk Records, and worldwide as a 12" and CD EP in early 2007 on FatCat Records. It contains three studio songs "People", "Tiwkid", and "My Favorite Colors", as well as a live version of "People".

Animal Collective performing live on December 27, 2006

In January 2007, Domino Recording Company announced that they would be releasing the new, then still unnamed, Animal Collective album. During the recording process in early 2007 member Josh Dibb announced via the Collected Animals forum that he would take a break from touring caused by a "myriad of personal reasons"[13] until fall. Since then, he has not returned and Animal Collective performed live as a three-piece from that time until late 2009.
On July 4, 2007, Strawberry Jam was leaked online. The album was released in the U.S. on September 11, 2007 and received immediate praise, due in part to a strong focus on vocals.[citation needed] Songs such as "For Reverend Green" serve as a showcase for the dynamic vocal range of Avey Tare. Further, the album closer 'Derek' is similar to the sound found on Panda Bear's Person Pitch, which was released on March 20, 2007. A series of EPs and singles led up to that release, beginning with "I'm Not" b/w "Comfy in Nautica" on United Acoustic Recordings (UUAR), "Bro's", a 12" on Fat Cat, and, most recently, Carrots, a split with Excepter on Paw Tracks (all of these appeared on the album). The album received much acclaim, including Album of the Year from Pitchfork Media and Tiny Mix Tapes.[14]

On April 27, 2007 Portner released an album under the Avey Tare moniker, Pullhair Rubeye, with his wife Kría Brekkan, formerly of the Icelandic band múm. The album is noted for the tracks being reversed. It was received very poorly by some critics and fans.

Merriweather Post Pavilion

The band toured extensively throughout 2007, completing several American and European tours. Beginning in May 2007 the band debuted a brand new batch of post-Strawberry Jam live songs. These songs were written in an intense two-week session before the tour, months before the release of Strawberry Jam. On October 5, 2007, the band, in its full four-man line up (opposed to its three-man lineup performances in 2007 and 2008) made their national television debut on Late Night with Conan O'Brien performing the song "#1" in support of Strawberry Jam.

On March 12, 2008, Water Curses EP leaked and was released on May 5, 2008. On April 9, the song "Water Curses" was released by itself digitally.

Animal Collective performing live in Prague on October 14, 2008

In early 2008[15] and still as a three piece, the collective entered the studio to record tracks for their eighth studio album. The album, entitled Merriweather Post Pavilion, was officially announced on the band's official website on October 5, 2008[16][17] and was released January 6, 2009.[18] The first single released from the album was "My Girls". Even before the record was released, several music magazines like Fact Magazine (UK) started to refer to it as "The Best Album of 2009",[citation needed] while Uncut Magazine called it "one of the landmark american albums of the century so far".[19] The band set to tour throughout Europe and US in 2009, notably being one of the headlining acts at September's ATP New York Festival, where Lennox also performed a solo set as Panda Bear.

Starting with the first tour dates in early 2009 the band introduced a new song, "What Would I Want? Sky", to the audience. This song was also part of a BBC Session recording. The May 2009 tour saw the debut of "Bleed". These songs would later be put on their Fall Be Kind EP

On May 7, 2009 the band made their second television appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, performing the single "Summertime Clothes" from Merriweather Post Pavilion. The appearance included the regular three-man lineup indicative of their 2007-2009 tours, which excluded Josh Dibb. Four dancers draped in sheets also appeared on-stage behind the band, a first in their live performances. The video accompanied the release of the single on July 7, 2009, also featuring remixes by Zomby (Hyperdub), Dâm-Funk (Stones Throw), and L.D.

In an interview with Pitchfork Media, Portner announced the last single from the album would be "Brother Sport" which was released November 9 on vinyl with the live B-side "Bleeding". In addition to the two singles, a video for the song "In The Flowers" was posted on Animal Collective's web site in mid November. The video was directed by Abby Portner, Avey Tare's sister.[16] The release of the Fall Be Kind EP followed on December 8, which includes leftovers from Merriweather Post Pavilion "Graze" and "I Think I Can", as well as previously BBC-recorded "What Would I Want? Sky", which contains the first ever legal Grateful Dead Sample, and "On A Highway". Also included was the recently toured "Bleed".[20]

Merriweather Post Pavilion was voted by readers across Canada as the #2 experimental[21] and #7 electro album of 2009 in Exclaim! magazine.[22]

ODDSAC and new material

For four years, the band had been working on ODDSAC, a visual record, with Danny Perez, who directed music videos for the band's "Who Could Win a Rabbit" and "Summertime Clothes" singles. The movie featured visuals which were developed and edited simultaneously with the music they recorded for it. Panda Bear stated they would like to "create a movie that would have visuals similar to what somebody would see if they closed their eyes while listening to Animal Collective's music". Weitz further added that "it's the most experimental stuff we've ever done." According to Portner, "Maybe here and there, in our minds, there's some weird narratives going on. The whole thing cohesively doesn't have one narrative; it's more of a visual or psychedelic thing. There are parts that are almost completely abstract, and there are parts that are little bit more live-action."

The film premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival on January 26.[23] ODDSAC was screened in theaters in North America and Europe in spring 2010, followed by a DVD release in August.[24]

In January 2010 LAS Magazine posted an article about alternative music financing that points out Deakin's initiative to have fans pay for a trip to perform at Africa's Festival in the Desert.[25]

Aside from touring New Zealand and Australia in December 2009, the band planned a break from their two years of touring to focus more on creating and writing music.[20] On November 13, Panda Bear announced a small European tour of his solo material in early 2010. He also stated that the band was on a touring hiatus to spend more time with their families.[26]

On March 4, 2010, Avey Tare, Deakin and Geologist collaborated once again with Danny Perez in the audio-visual performance piece Transverse Temporal Gyrus at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, celebrating its 50th anniversary.[27]

During several interviews in the second half of 2010, Lennox and Portner mentioned plans for Animal Collective's next album, including writing all together in the same location[28] and the possibility of recording the new songs before taking them on tour,[29] neither of which had happened for a long time. Portner revealed in October that the band would soon be moving back to their home county of Baltimore to write music there.[30]

Near the end of October 2010, All Tomorrow's Parties announced that Animal Collective would be curating and headlining their UK festival in May 2011.[31] It was confirmed in late November 2010 that Deakin would be rejoining the group for this show as well as the rest of the shows of their new tour.[32] Before starting their first European tour of 2011, all four members of the band had a short tour of California leading up to an appearance at the Coachella Music Festival.[33] At the shows, the band mostly played their newly written songs that were yet to be recorded.[34][35]

On the 18th of April it was announced that Animal Collective would have a concert on July 9, 2011 at Merriweather Post Pavilion, the namesake of their eighth studio album.[36]

Members

  • Avey Tare (David Portner; vocals, guitar, samples, keys, percussion) – Name comes from "tearing" apart the name David (Davey), hence Avey Tare. It is not related to the word "avatar". Avey Tare is known for his out of key vocals as well as his addiction to obscure drugs. Many critics have urged the other members of Animal Collective to leave Avey Tare, so that the band can reach it's full potential. Panda Bear stated that, "Dude, Avey is sometimes really gay, he like to bang dudes sometimes after gigs. I think he is like under the influence of psychedelic drugs which make him beleive that the men he is engaging in sex with are like, these drug monsters from another galaxy."[37]
  • Panda Bear (Noah Lennox; vocals, percussion, samples, guitar) – Name comes from the panda he drew on the first set of songs he ever wrote.[38]
  • Deakin (Josh Dibb; synthesizer, guitar, vocals) – Name comes from letters he used to write to other members under the name Conrad Deacon. He has used different spellings of the name on different albums: "Deaken" on Here Comes the Indian, "Deakin" on Feels and "Deacon" on Strawberry Jam and the single "Grass". Having been absent from the band's tours since early 2007, he began a solo tour in 2010 (using the spelling "Deakin" at the request of fellow Baltimorean musician Dan Deacon, in order to avoid confusion).[39] He rejoined the band in 2011.[32]
  • Geologist (Brian Weitz; electronics, samples, vocals) – Name comes from the headlamp he wears in order to see the electronics during live shows.[40] Someone mistakenly assumed Brian studied geology in college; however, he studied marine biology.[37]

Discography

Main article: Animal Collective discography

References

  1. ^ a b c d Collected Animals Post by Dave Portner under the user name "wheeter", December 5, 2006
  2. ^ identity theory mmusic Band interview from August 2005
  3. ^ Nasrallah, Dimitri . "On the cover - Animal Collective - Flux Capacity", Exclaim!, September 2007.
  4. ^ a b c d e Harvell, Jess. "Out Of The Woods: Animal Collective Beats A Path From Baltimore County To Indie Fame", Baltimore City Paper, October 19, 2005. Retrieved on July 5, 2010.
  5. ^ a b c d e f MOTHER NATURE'S SONS: Animal Collective and Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti by Simon Reynolds, The Wire, 2005
  6. ^ Collected Animals Post by Dave Portner under the user name "wheeter", August 10, 2006
  7. ^ Interview with Panda Bear, The Milk Factory, April 2005
  8. ^ Collected Animals Post by Deakin, January 9, 2008
  9. ^ a b Collected Animals Post by Dave Portner under the user name "wheeter", January 9, 2008
  10. ^ "news". paw tracks. Retrieved August 18, 2010.
  11. ^ a b Collected Animals Post by Brian Weitz under the user name "veyesor", May 12, 2006
  12. ^ Collected Animals, July 15, 2006
  13. ^ Collected Animals Post by Josh Dibb under the user name "deakin", January 30, 2007
  14. ^ Tiny Mix Tapes ~ Staff Features Tiny Mix Tapes Favorite Albums of 2007
  15. ^ "Domino | News | Merriweather Post Pavilion". Dominorecordco.com. Retrieved August 18, 2010.
  16. ^ a b "Guys Eyes". Myanimalhome.net. Retrieved August 18, 2010.
  17. ^ "The Roots, Animal Collective, Kings of Leon And More Enjoy "Disorganized" Spirit Of All Points West » MTV Newsroom". Newsroom.mtv.com. August 11, 2008. Retrieved August 18, 2010.
  18. ^ "Animal Collective Magazine - News, Reviews, Albums and Videos". Idiomag.com. Retrieved August 18, 2010.
  19. ^ "Album review: Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion - Review". Uncut.co.uk. Retrieved August 18, 2010.
  20. ^ a b Pitchfork Media: News "Animal Collective's Avey Tare Reveals All About New EP, Film, Tour Hiatus", October 9, 2009
  21. ^ Top Avant-Garde/Experimental albums in Exclaim! 2009 readers poll Exclaim.ca
  22. ^ Top Electronic albums in Exclaim! 2009 readers poll Exclaim.ca
  23. ^ [1][dead link]
  24. ^ "ODDSAC". ODDSAC. Retrieved August 18, 2010.
  25. ^ LAS Kickstart My Art article
  26. ^ Pitchfork Media ~ News "Panda Bear Announces Solo Tour", November 13, 2009
  27. ^ Guggenheim ~ Releases "Guggenheim Presents Animal Collective and Danny Perez Performance", February 17, 2010
  28. ^ Brooklyn Vegan "an interview w/ Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear (about the album release date, status of Animal Collective & more)", September 7, 2010
  29. ^ Pitchfork ~ News "Avey Tare Talks New Solo Album, Animal Collective's Future, Crocodiles", August 19, 2010
  30. ^ self-titled magazine :: self-titled daily "THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: Avey Tare of Animal Collective", October 19, 2010
  31. ^ ATP: All Tomorrow's Parties "ANIMAL COLLECTIVE TO CURATE ATP UK IN MAY 2011 - ON SALE FRIDAY", October 27, 2010
  32. ^ a b http://pitchfork.com/news/40842-deakin-back-in-animal-collective/
  33. ^ http://pitchfork.com/news/41310-animal-collective-announce-us-dates/
  34. ^ Pitchfork "interviews: Panda Bear"
  35. ^ Spin magazine "ANIMAL COLLECTIVE Debut Powerful New Songs", April 17, 2011
  36. ^ Twitter: Merriweather Post "JUST ANNOUNCED at @MerriweatherPP : Animal Collective on July 9th!", April 18, 2011
  37. ^ a b "The Animal Collective". FREEwilliamsburg. February 23, 2005. Retrieved August 18, 2010.
  38. ^ Interview, The Milk Factory, March 2005.
  39. ^ [2], Bmore Musically Informed, May 2010.
  40. ^ Explained on WNYC's "Spinning On Air," July 30, 2004, second hour.

^ The 405 :: The 405 "Animal Collective // The 405 Interview", May 10, 2011

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