Animal Collective - 'Centipede HZ'
There will be two popular responses to Animal Collective’s ninth LP. The first – the one that has accompanied each and every brain-fart the Baltimorean quartet have issued since 2004’s ‘Sung Tongs’ – is gushing, knee-jerk (and not...
Animal Collective - 'Honeycomb'
Here are four things I think about the new Animal Collective single : 1) They have a lot of songs about edible sweet things; 2) This is quite ‘jazz hands’, isn’t it?; 3) Oh look, a Latin breakdown Ricky Martin would be proud of; 4) I’m...
Animal Collective - 'Honeycomb'
After the experimental meandering of largely impenetrable Record Store Day release ‘Transverse Temporal Gyrus’, the Baltimore oddballs regain a degree of focus here among the bubbling synths and aquatic production. It seriously rewards repeat...
Animal Collective - 'Transverse Temporal Gyrus'
Expanding on the more experimental parts of 2009’s ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’, this sonic canter through the various studio cuts and live material from a performance at New York’s Guggenheim Museum marks Animal Collective at their most...
Live Review: ATP
It was bound to happen eventually: angry trolls decrying ATP as no good anymore, that its organisers are out of ideas. But that’s piffle. The real reason for the smaller numbers heading west for a weekend shepherded by Animal Collective was...
Album review: Animal Collective - 'ODDSAC'...
Let’s face it, music DVDs are crap. Either they’re live/tour contractual obligation snoozefests, compilations of promo videos already available for free on YouTube, or indulgent follies providing an opportunity for the keyboard player to...
Album review: Animal Collective - 'Fall Be...
Imagine for a moment that the internet is something you can hold in your hands. You pick it up and, ignoring mother’s pleas to leave the mucky thing alone, you set about building a scrapbook for every band ever blogged about, by anyone,...
Animal Collective
It’s a canny move, calling yourself a ‘collective’. It critic-proofs you in a way not even a Kevlar windcheater could, lending every note a that’ll-do air of chaotic-but-communal incompletion, guaranteeing you a free pass on any...
Animal Collective
The picture of the sleeve on this page is nowhere near big enough. Go look it up online, as big as you can, and stare at it very hard. See how, as you try to focus on any one part of the tessellated pattern, the sections in the periphery of your...
ATP curated by Explosions In The Sky
Texan post-rockers Explosions In The Sky may be a fine name to drop in certain circles, but in terms of legendarily inspirational and influential bands they’re hardly Sonic Youth. So the decision to allow them to curate ATP seems a trifle...
