AVEY TARE

Late 2003. Animal Collective played at a small cafe. Avey Tare screamed, shouted and cried through a vast spectrum of pedals and electronic distortion. Panda Bear thrashed his drum kit with an astonishing fury. It was an exhilarating, tribal jam, with the bombed force of an ancient Amon Duul record. The audience couldn't get enough. Closing time. Avey was selling merch with a big smile, a natural showman, Panda sat by the side of the stage, inspecting wires, a serene roadie. They were likable, supremely unpretentious. It was an era when me and my friends would be checking out the brutalising noise of Wolf Eyes one night and maybe, Joanna Newsom the next. Animal Collective communicated through both worlds, as there was always plenty of melody underneath their storms of discord.

Early 2009. Animal Collective played at a relatively large venue. A strobe show. Some sort of rave for an audience with tar on their shoes. I felt so far away and disconnected. Everything had changed. Panda Bear's Person Pitch and Merriweather Post Pavilion are, of course, miraculous adventures, listening to them makes you happy to be alive. They'll stand up for years to come, pivotal and enormously influential for a little majority. That crew waits for Person Pitch 2 with baited breath and Tomboy probably won't disappoint. Not easily dissuaded, his co-worker has made a very private, spook-house record in the interim that harks back to their earlier, looser foundations. Down There shakes with splatter, suggestive in it's creeping fragmentation, lurching impenetrably to a damp, camouflaged woodland. He drizzles faded obscurity over rhythms clapped out by whiplash, pained harmonies foreboding the worst and dilapidated synth dirt feeding on the remains. Those rascal zombies, they are all hot and bothered from hunger. Forget milestones, this invitation chimes through cement.