giraffo

for those who like MPP:

it's an unreleased song that went unfinished during recording...personally Panda Bear has one of his best vocal performances/moments ever in his part during the string section:

"what ever made me into a man?/if I had my friends, I wouldn't need a thing"

that was really meandering. I think Jack had a hard time singing or something, it seemed like every note was a struggle. Also, the least Meg could have done was learned to harmonize or something.

IMO Animal Collective are the most idiosyncratic band today that does have followers and will have followers, also Grizzly Bear. personally bands like My Morning Jacket (ESPECIALLY after Evil Urges) or The White Stripes aren't really inventive enough to really stand out in the long run.

edit: also, like ive said before, Animal Collective has this positive American vibe backing it that I think is more soulful than the whiney drone of a band like Radiohead...Not to mention Radiohead came up amongst Britpoppers who have all but dissapeared while Animal Collective stand out amongst even intensely personal music in the same vein like Black Dice, Lightning Bolt, Gang Gang Dance, Battles, Grizzly Bear/Dep. Eagles.

oh my god

two Nels Clines exist

my head might have just exploded wtfffffffff

the only thing that makes me question that list is that he probably didn't flat out lie but just exaggerated what's there or wrote it there arbitrarily ("oh yeah, and I played percussion on that track). also wasn't Poor Places reworked and on record it's only JT, JOR and Glenn? I read that in the Greg Kot book, I believe.

when i say sample - i don't even mean like a loop of chords or anything - i think he may take a single snare hit from one song - a tambourine from another, etc. of course now with modern digital technology, you can do that and then create beats from them.

 

it's funny to me that they would give sample credit to something as simple as a jawharp bit - why not just find a jawharp and try to recreate it? (unless there's more they're sampling in the song i dont' realize since i don't know the original song)

i don't think the album was so sample heavy that he would sample like one snare smack. he does some guitar playing on it, too. I donno, I never got the whole 'Pet Sounds' reference everyone made. Like, to me, Take Pills and Bros are the only ones I could relate back to that album, but songs like I'm Not or Ponytail or Good Girl/Carrots to me are more like hip hop songs with the bass removed or something.

for the jaw harp, well, 1. jaw harp is a bitch to play, and 2. the jaw harp sample has like a 9/4 time signature and the whole song is based around that rhythm. it was used with a pretty specific idea in mind.

isn't the list in Person Pitch a list of all the artists he took samples from?

 

i didn't think about it at first, but it didn't just sound Pet Sounds-esque but like actual bits of that session were sampled.

nah, there's a small list somewhere of some recognizable samples, but there no actual Beach Boys samples. they're just some of his influences. the only song that might even have a Beach Boys sample would be the less Beach Boys style song like Search for Delicious.

i've also wondered if they pile a ton of effects on their vocals live.

from song to song, differing amounts of delay.

do their early records have a ton of vocal effects, too?

yeah, but in varying ways. From like Spirit They've Gone-Here Comes the Indian they have a lot of intense vocoder and synth filters, very thin sounding vocals. On Sung Tongs there's a lot of pitch altering that fades throughout and from Feels on it's just been some reverb.

so when is the presale for the Beacon show?

I think it's a tad long and would be tighter with the loss of at least one track.

 

Anyone know what percentage of the backing tracks are made up of instruments they actually play or samples manipulated beyond the ability to sue for copyright infringement?

 

I'm pretty sure on Strawberry Jam they sampled the light saber sound from Star Wars.

As protective as Lucas* is, I'm surprised he didn't try to do anything about it - I guess it was too short to really do anything.

 

 

*A local band was named Moss Eisley, but when they were signed by Warner Brothers, they were made to change their name. They simply dropped the 'Moss' and became Eisley.

the only recognizable samples they used were the jaw harp in 'Lion in a Coma' and the G and Fmaj7 chords of 'Guys Eyes' are sampled from The Zombies (Leave Me Be), but I dont remember what song. there are some samples that run throughout that are the guys playing- most of the drums I believe are altered beats by Panda Bear, and there are a bunch of other samples that drift throughout that are from other sources, but they're usually extra things and dont pertain to the melody or chords.

to me, Sung Tongs is like two dudes playing acoustic guitars (maybe with weed) in a shed in the winter having a blast (thats what it was), Feels is a summertime jamfest of guitars and drums about love (it was), Strawberry Jam was 4 guys maturing into legitimate songwriters, and Merriweather Post Pavillion is everyone working at the same goal. I can't imagine what their next album will be like but I think it may be the album most similar to their past stuff.

speaking of Theremin...

Brian Wilson

Picasso (might have founded modern art after 1900, thereby contributing to a continuous change in art and design for 100 years)

John Maeda (RISD prez, MIT grad, all around brilliant thinker and innovator on the concept of simplicity)

yeah, but from what I've been told WC has a coke habit. so, that might be the "it" to introduce into your life.

i don't really find AC THAT unique i guess... well, original moreso than unique. they've always just kinda reminded me of a more nob-twiddling Beach Boys.

 

as for the quality rip, hopefully you're right and the real thing sounds way better

knob twiddling beach boys? :\ I donno. I don't see anything Beach Boysie about this record aside from harmonies. the rest of it is completely contemporary..blips, bass, kick drums, interesting percussion, samples that float in and out.

but even the ways they do vocals on this record isn't very similar to the Beach Boys. I mean, if that's what you think, but I just don't see it. Especially on Spirit or Strawberry Jam it would be hard for me to say that they were a Beach Boys influenced band.

giving this my first listen...

never liked this band, but this isn't giving me a headache like past records have, so that has to account for something!

 

is it just me or is the production on this kinda muted and a bit distant? ie: on My Girls? sounds like i'm listening to it through a blanket almost.

 

edit: hmm... Guys Eyes might be the first AC song i can say i outright love...

well, part of it is that it's a 160 rip, so the quality isn't crystal. I've heard My Girls that leaked early very high quality and it is very clear and the bass is very nice.

man, maybe Ive just become a bigger fan over the past few months than I thought, but why aren't people freaking out over this album? I like it a ton more than a lot of recent acclaimed albums and find it incredibly unique.

yeah, I have been listening to this since yesterday. it is awesome.

Wilco Song beats them all

this is the album art

3 tracks have leaked but I cannot find them to link right now, but if you look hard they should be easy to spot.

all animal collective fans and non fans I know of are going bonkers waiting for this to leak, and I am among them.

um....I liked Sun Giant? I guess.

Obama's honesty has followed him throughout his whole rise - and I'm talking about decades.

oh like that time he said he wouldn't take public financing or that time he said he'd work with his opponent to ensure campaign spending was kept reasonable as to not empower lobbyists and then outspent his opponent tenfold

man, honesty.

please, get real. This guy is just another president. I don't dislike him or hope he fails, but jeez, what Kool-Aid are you people drinking? The Republicans spent 8 years being unpopular. A Democrat was likely to take office whether they were white, black, or in HRC's case slightly above mentally ill. He's not going to change anything. He's another president. You guys have heard of somone named Elliot Spitzer right (that was a joke)? He ran his campaign like Obama, based on hope, change, and "day 1" promise. He had the experience--Attorney General who fought for the little guy coming to graciously run the state and eventually the country. Look how well he did. He fumbled, got his ass trounced by Joe Bruno and in an attempt to bring the change he sought did some pretty corrupt shit, and offered illegal aliens driver's licenses. Then he banged a hooker. I wish people would be realistic-- after 6 months to a year this guy is just another crooky politician. Rhetoric will fall to the wayside and you'll see he's just another guy who wanted to be president and was willing to run over people to get there.

Also, the fact that people are so excited about his race is hilarious. People want to make all these claims about how gracious and free the US is and then act like it's a big deal a (half)black person is president (Germany, hardly having a history of being free or gracious as we so humbly state we are, has had a female chancellor since 2005). Is it historical? of course. But there's a lot of hypocrisy attached to his race and him in office.

Like I said. I don't not want him to win and excite and unite people, but I think everyone should be realistic about him and just understand that he is hardly a beacon of hope and change. He's just another politician. He did the same dirty, moronic things politicians do to get into office. America made the right choice this time (third time IS the charm) but shouldn't misconstrue making the right choice with some kind ofrevolution.

haha, I actually really liked that song. extremely catchy and funny-- not necesarily something I was expecting out of the band at this point, listening to the other songs.

I dont think the record would be different song wise or arrangments, I just think it would have sounded completely different mixwise-- something that actually might have made the record more interesting for other people. JOR mixes records crazy good...There might not be so much special about his records I think, but the mix is so different and good.

wow, was scared for a second...

oh no..I can only guess what one of these new songs is about. yikes.

also, I hate the misconceptions about Sky Blue Sky, like the band went flaccid or something: JT and the boys haven't lost some kind of magical powers they had previously. You hear them talk about Sky Blue Sky and it was a conscious effort to just write songs. It wasn't some kind of "oh I've stopped smoking cigarettes and popping pills so now I'm weepy and writing cutesie soft rock because my powers are gone." It was just about the guys getting together and making simple, beautiful songs. No reinventing the wheel. JT has also pointed out the lack of credit he's been given at every turn ("oh that record was Bennett, and that record was JOR, and that record was the pills.."). These are damn brilliant guys and they aren't ignorant. I'm not saying the next album is going to be a crowning achievement, but I don't think these guys are all of the sudden out of touch with their craft and going to repeat themselves and try and reach for something they used to be.

also, maybe I'm painting with a broad brush (I could see how people could find SBS boring, but..) but is it so hard for the SBS dislikers to find beauty in something that isn't "innovative"? Is it that easy for people nowadays to dismiss top notch craftsmanship bottled in 13 songs?