Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion

I'd agree that Merriweather Post Pavillion is probably Animal Collective's most accessible, melodic and 'catchy' album. I think Summertime Clothes is probably their single most sunny, warm and sweet pop song they've ever written.

Did you get into Panda Bear's Person Pitch when it came out? I'd say Merriweather Post Pavillion has more in common with Panda's solo record than previous Animal Collective records. I believe he also had the most creative input on MPP as well. Avey Tare has usually been responsible for Animal Collective's more agressive/abrasive, screaming side, while Panda Bear is the softer, more melodic one. I've always thought of it as being Panda Bear is the McCartney to Avey Tare's Lennon.

I'd check out more of Animal Collective's back catalog still if you really like MPP. Here Comes the Indian and their older stuff is pretty unpolished and crazy at times. Sung Tongs is a favorite-their most acoustic, stripped down, tribal and trippy record. Definitely one that fits the freak folk description. Feels is a mix of in your face songs like Grass and The Purple Bottle with meandering and dreamy songs like Bees and Daffy Duck. Strawberry Jam is no doubt Animal Collective at their most consistently agressive sounding. I love Strawberry Jam (heck I love all their stuff!) but it's the type of Animal Collective record that has lots of shouts and screams from start to finish.

MPP is a pretty big departure for them I'd say. But that's one of the things I love so much about this band. I never know just exactly what their next release will sound like. It's always something innovative and fresh.

 

I believe I read that the first run was around 4500 copies which sold out right away. I have the CD right now while I wait for the LP to come in the mail when it's no longer back ordered.

 

How's it mastered? Gently? Super-loud? Brickwalled?

 

as a fellow u-25 member, I can't stop jumping up and down after discovering this album (actually, Animal Collective themselves) only an hour ago!

 

I've just listened to it 3 times, lying on my bed. First listen was interesting, but now I don't really like it.

 

got my vinyl on the day of its release. high quality production, 180 g, sounds fantastic! and everyone who needs a digital copy can download the album as wav-files via a coupon in the lp-set.
oh, and the music: loved animal collective since sung tongs. love them even more now.

 

From the LA Times:

With its eighth studio release, Animal Collective has distilled an album of its purest songs yet. "Merriweather Post Pavilion" shines a light into Avey Tare, Panda Bear and Geologist's subterranean world of labyrinthine freakadelia, banishing some of the ghosts that have haunted it before.

The indie community and some mainstream outlets have celebrated the album with Pentecostal-like fever, which is surprising, considering that "Merriweather Post Pavilion" isn't a new sound for the urban tribalists, only the best iteration to date. It shows how far editing -- and a core group of fanatics -- can take a band.

Certain aural tattoos remain on the New York outfit's collective skin. The banshee wails, the blood-pumping-in-the-ears rhythms, the straight MDMA hits of melody, but Avey Tare and Panda Bear dispense with most of their creepy vocal tics. Instead, they take the breezy harmonies of Panda Bear's 2007 solo outing, "Person Pitch," and stretch, break and blow them out like colorful bulbs of glass.

"My Girls" is a stomping, echo-drenched blast; "Summertime Clothes" is a sweaty, glittery hallucination. Both of them groove with a cool wetness, rivulets of rhythm streaming down their surfaces like water running down a cave's walls.

Animal Collective still struggles with effective counterweights to its euphoric beauty -- the attempt at romance on "Bluish" is off-putting and some of the murkiness can exhaust and undermine -- but it shifts so rapidly, with such conviction, that it's more fun to hunker down and surrender.

--Margaret Wappler



Also mentioned prominently in LA Times article on "Urban Bushwackers" - a genre of music I didn't know existed.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-hippies25-2009jan25,0,3245835.story

 

The World Goes GaGa Over MPP...

It seems you cannot pick up any magazine these days and not read rave reviews about MPP... Today Time came and it even got a gushing therein...


cheers,

 

It also received the lead review in MOJO. I am going to try to track this down on vinyl when it is repressed.

 

Looks like Amazon got some in:

Here

 

I just checked that link and it says ships in 11 to 14 days - which means they actually don't have any currently in stock. Everyone, it seems, is out of stock except for:

http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_detail.cfm?Title_ID=57166

But look at that price... $16.00 over list price. I think I will wait on my CDUniverse.com pre-order at $22.00.

 

I have both the CD and LP of Strawberry Jam and the LP is much, much better. I never played the CD after getting the LP but because of this thread I just pulled it out and played it against the LP and as mfp already stated I would agree that the CD is unlistenable. Especially when compared to the vinyl the CD is INSANELY LOUD.

MPP on CD is better but not by a wide margin, it's still mastered very loudly but doesn't sound brickwalled IMO.
I'm still waiting on my vinyl of MPP but a good guess is it will sound much better. I'd wait for the LP if you don't already have it.

Panda Bear has stated that MPP is Animal Collective's best recorded album, but I imagine he was only referring to the fact that it's their most polished album.

I just read this interesting bit on Wikipedia that I didn't realize before. Explains where the direction for MPP came from:

After recording Strawberry Jam in January 2007, Deakin (Josh Dibb, guitarist) decided he would take time off from the group for undisclosed personal reasons. As a result, the group decided that they would write a new batch of songs to be played without guitar. Drawing inspiration from Panda Bear's Person Pitch, they decided to use samplers as their primary instrument. They debuted nine of these songs, most of which later appeared on the album, in May 2007 and toured with them through 2008. The album was recorded in February 2008 with Ben Allen at Sweet Tea Studios in Oxford, Mississippi.

 

This is from an interview about the album on UK website The Quietus (link):

 

Don't feel bad Mr. Bill, local indie 'round here can't even keep the CD in stock. I've been there twice now to buy it.....sold out......again. Best Buy website says a close-by location has copies, but......I can't......I just can't.

 

MMP MIA MMT Myst Tree...

I've given up on the vinyl at this point... and am thinking maybe I should sample the Cd or a store player before purchasing...as my daughter, 19, says she thinks I might not dig it... so now I need to investigate further...


cheers,

 

Have you heard "My Girls" at least? If not, click the link in my sig and watch the video.......this song will sell you.

 

My Girls Is Fun...

That was pretty cool... I likey... Sadly, it started breaking up about half way through, sonically, my computer methinkest... but it was a great first half... good song, strong visuals... will most def go play the cd in the store...

cheers,

 

Oh then you missed the great, infectious, repeating chorus at the end.....the best part. Oh well. Stay on the trek for the vinyl.....

 

Yeah, I recently listened to Strawberry Jam and Panda Bear's Person Pitch, definitely not good masterings. Sad, too, cause the albums are so layered,

 

The more I play this album the more I find myself thinking it might be Animal Collective's best, perhaps even better than Feels, which I didn't think before.

My Girls is brilliant. Other favorites are Summertime Clothes, Bluish and Brothersport. This album just flows better and is more cohesive than anything else they've done before.

 

I finally got the album. I must say it's less a 'departure' from Strawberry Jam than the reviews I'd read had led me to believe. MPP is a better album though.
After three listenings, my favorite track so far is Daily Routine.

I still prefer Sung Tongs, but then again it's not unusual that my favorite album by any artist is the first I heard.

 

Hats off to Rob for turning me on to this record. My copy arrived today and I'm on my second listen.

THIS IS A VERY IMPRESSIVE RECORD!

 

Does anyone know there background with Baltimore or Maryland?

Merriweather Post Pavillion is the name of a popular outdoor concert venue in Columbia Maryland. At the AllMusic website in the summary of the "Strawberry Jam" release, it states "The Baltimore-bred, Brooklyn-based Animal Collective have made a name for themselves by being something wholly other". They have another tune called "Loch Raven" which is a town in Baltimore County.

 

I received my vinyl copy the other day.

Not the greatest pressing as far as QC goes. Never seen a vinyl before with this much actual static. It was like opening a black hole. Any and all dust, hairs, and particles were immediately drawn to the disc. At least my room is clean now, and was able to adequately brush the contaminants off and dispel some of the static. Edges were rough and dusty ,and I had a nice gash right in the middle of the A side (inaudable).

All that and yet I still can't complain because the sound quality nice and expansive and the music is most pleasing. Not as much of a huge departure from their last couple of offerings as I anticipated due to the reviews, but I'm pretty sure this one will show up on quite a few end of the year lists. Great start to 2009. Hopefully this trend continues.

 

I'm listening for the first time right now, and my impression is that this music would be excellent if I were stoned.