"If you think everything is all right, you're just standing on the surface of shit." Theo Parrish
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
random notes on Merriweather Post Pavilion
Real Leaf House.
As the internet has revealed, I had the honor and distinct privilege to hear the latest Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavilion.
You annoy-nymous posters out there will perhaps notice that I didn't say I had the album, only that I heard to it, right? Even if I did have it, the only way I have attained such a privilege is by not pretending it's my intellectual property to give away to strangers. So please stop asking.
But here's what I scratched out on that initial listen:
* a text message sent to my friend during the opening moments: "Boomy, shimmering, trippy."
* the dynamic frequencies heard to jarring and enervating effect on Strawberry Jam are now warm and immersive
*MPP is in the direction hinted at by the Pantha du Prince remix of "Peacebone," Water Curses's "Street Flash," Person Pitch, but come to fruition.
*Whereas PP had a homemade, lo-fi 4-track feel, this is given the proper full-range boom-tick
*it's going to sound sick booming out of a jeep
*flowing, ever-changing, there's a liquidity to the entire album, lots of water samples (no wonder it's being debuted at "The River Room")
*if I didn't know better, I would think the band just discovered Ecstasy, there's that telltale 'flash' to it
*have they been hanging out in Berlin techno clubs on tour?
*"Am I really all the things that are outside of me?"
* it's a continuum of the band's previous obsessions: Beach Boys, Terry Riley, Missa Luba, Kaito, Sagittarius, GAS, but in its most resplendent and assured manifestation to date
*to be filed alongside Screamadelica, Loveless