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