Animal Collective

have you heard these guys?



Question:
"Do you consider what Animal Collective does to be more in the art or the pop tradition?

(Deaken's answer):
We are in the tradition of realizing that any music or any art form, ideally, is not art for the sake of art, but rather a personal journey toward discovering something. We've treated it like that for a long time. Art definitely has a place in it, because art has a place in our lives, and pop definitely has a place in it, because we all listen to a lot of pop music and we think it sounds really good. Those two elements and many more end up in the mix of what we do. We would probably all give slightly different answers to the question, but in general we feel that what we do is very personal. There are a ton of traditions that we are inspired by, and we listen to a ton of music. We are usually inspired by how someone came to be in the place where they made their music. Syd Barrett, the artists on the Kompakt label like Dettinger, reggae music, whatever we are listening to - we are inspired by the process that they went through to get there, and why they were doing what they were doing, and what they were influenced by in being there. We are living in our time now, and we're trying to do something that, to us, represents what our world is like. That's one of the reasons why each Animal Collective album is really different. There are unifying factors, but each of the stages represents us coming together for a period of time and saying 'what's happening to us right now?' and 'what do we feel like?' and 'what's our world like?' and 'what's our environment like?' and 'how do I feel personally?, how are we getting along?, what have I been listening to?, what do I look at?' and 'what do I spend my evenings doing?' and how does that entire thing come together and produce itself into a song that we decide to make. That's the process of every song, every album, every performance."

see, the thing is, i don't really know what to say. i'm inspired by so many aspects of what they do, it's hard to pick out what parts to praise. it seems so... ethereal, a true record of the event of people coming together to play music in a rooms, bringing parts of their lives and feelings that create an incredible depth.

i'm in love.


another quote:

"Can you tell us a bit about how you recorded Campfire Songs?

Panda Bear: It was out at Dave’s [Avey Tare's] cousin’s place, out in rural Maryland. Out in the countryside. They have a little screened–in porch and we all sat in there, and we had, like, two mini disc players recording inside, and we put one outside so you could get the whole sphere of what was going on as we played. And we played it straight through.

All the way through–no stops?

Avey Tare: Yeah, it took us a while to get the right take.

How long is the album?

All: 41 minutes or something."