Animal Collective
Damn, damn. I didn't know about this mutha. Same knight as Bobby Zimm. Mutha... the Collective can friggin bring it on stage.
Prob. gonna miss 'em this time. But I saw 'em once:
The first tune Animal Collectiveâ??s played at the Black Cat Monday night lasted nearly 90 minutes. That long, entrancing â??songâ? was actually a nonstop, free flowing set, but the strategy served the Brooklyn-based outfit well, as they slowly shaped scattered tones, drones and beats into a kaleidoscopic, spine-tingling trance.
The Collective often appears as a duo, but were a quartet Monday: core pair Panda Bear (drums, vocals) and Avery Tare (guitars, vocals) were joined by guitarist Deaken and electronics twiddler Geologist. Despite the spacey, straight-outta-the-Commune monikers and their near-constant hopping and swaying around the stage, they maintained a remarkable musical alliance, coalescing on a common pulse that veered from a barely audible nature thrums to searing interior nightmares.
Lumped unjustly into a movement with â??freak-folkâ? singers like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, Panda Bearâ??s intense drumming casts them as a unearthly rock band . Their most recent record, â??Sung Tongsâ? (and an upcoming EP with rediscovered hippie darling Vashti Bunyan) feature delicate acoustic dreamscapes, but their live set drew power from effects-laden electric guitars. They weaved suggestions of their own deeply skewed pop songs (â??Kids on Holidayâ?,â??We Tigersâ?) into the show and even dreamed their way into Stevie Wonderâ??s â??I Just Called to Say I Love Youâ? at one point, but the entire setâ??s ebb-n-flow took precedence over individual compositions. And when the Collective finished their main set ---what was left of the the surprisingly large crowd did manage to shout them back for a encore--- with a hopping, whooping, clapping drum circle, the ensuing silence was like emerging from a dark forest into a harsh, bright world.
