Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion

Couldn't say about the mastering, but if you buy the MMP vinyl you get to download a free WAV copy from the internet.

 

I've heard Strawberry Jam only a couple of times, Louis, and I agree it's really dense. Feels is a different ... um ... animal (ok, that was lame). But I think the mastering is decent for CD. And I love the music.

I'm holding out to buy Merriweather on vinyl, so I can't offer any thoughts on that.

Jeff

 

Jeff,

Do you mean that "Feels" is different in the sense that the music is less dense, or that the mastering on that particular CD is less bright and compressed? Or did you mean both? It's not the density of the music I have trouble with in the case of "Strawberry Jam." That's actually part of the attraction. It's just that the mastering style seems to have cut down on the sense of detail and texture that I feel I ought to be getting from the recording.

Thanks,


L.

 

Amazon lists it at 20 bucks and Music Direct has it at 23 bucks if you're interested. Ordered mine today.

 

I mean both. The music on Feels is lighter, more acoustic, and there's more space between the instruments, to my ears. From what I've read, the vinyl version is supposed to be very good, but I don't mind the CD at all -- and brightness is usually the one thing that can drive me to reach for another album or at least the volume control. Does that help?

Geez, I'm starting to sound like a Hoffman board member.

Jeff

 

Thanks, Woody. Do you ever make it up to Wilmington? There's a pretty good shop there called Gravity Records. I'm hoping to grab MPP there this weekend. The owner's holding me a copy.

Jeff

 

Ah, the forum disease! I'm a victim myself.......

That does help!

Thanks, again,

L.

 

Not really. I work up in Myrtle Beach so that's about as far north as I usually venture. I would have waited and bought it locally but I had a few other lps I wanted to pick up that I doubt I'd find around here.

 

I agree. If you like MPP you'll like those two, although the Panda Bear album has a more “homemade” low-fi character. The pieces on the Panda Bear album unfold in more surprising and abstract ways and some of them are quite long.

I'm also very impressed with this album and find it endlessly enjoyable. It’s such a pleasure to watch a group evolve and find a truly fresh, universally-appealing sound. It can't be easy. They were always a fearless bunch, but I think they've now stopped fearing success. The song structures have an abstract collage-like quality at first… they're a bit vaporous perhaps, but after a few listens I know exactly where they’re headed. They’re not sing-around-the-campfire material, but who cares?

I don't want to turn this into an old fart's thread about 60’s influences (and at 54 I'm most definitely an old fart) but would Animal Collective or Fleet Foxes be making their recent albums if they hadn’t immersed themselves in SMiLE? They don’t sound like SMiLE or the Beach Boys and the two bands are opposites in their approach to music-making, but the harmony singing, the simple keyboard figures… I hear many loving tips-of-the-hat to Brian Wilson from both bands.

 

Guy,

IMO, it may be a conscious tip-of-the-hat, or unconscious. To me, this is a discussion about the post-modern era we live in, or maybe the post-post-modern. I was listening to the first Raconteurs album today and the influences there are similarly profound, conscious or unconscious. Same with Devendra Banhardt or Sigur Ros. The subtle appropriations and ironic references in the music are very, very interesting, and may or may not be intentional or deliberate.

BTW, we're the same age.

 

I'm much younger than you old-timers. I'll be just 51 in a couple of weeks.

Guy raises an interesting point. The Beach Boys have definitely made an impression on at least some of today's indie rockers. Robert Schneider of Apples in Stereo has raved and raved about the greatness of Pet Sounds and even named his studio after the album. Okkervil River did a fantastic cover of Sloop John B on The Stage Names last year.

More anecdotally, I've seen the vinyl version of SMiLE and the vinyl reissue of PS in just about every college record shop I've visited in the past few years.

So I can certainly believe that Animal Collective and Fleet Foxes may have tapped into the vibe as well.

Jeff

 

Well, the mainman in Fleet Foxes mentioned SMiLE in his interview with MOJO and when my daughter first told me I might like Animal Collective a few years ago she mentioned their vocal evocations of the Beach Boys.

What I find fascinating is the influence SMiLE has weilded in its unreleased state (I suspect that younger listeners are drawn to the vintage recordings, not the Brian Wilson album).

Musical references and influences are often subliminal. I just think its great hearing these things in two critically-lauded young bands, both of whom have clear, distinctive visions. These aren't trainspotting "sounds like" combos. Animal Collective brings together musical ingredients that I normally struggle to appreciate such as Techno and an absence of guitars.

 

No post-modernists here?

 

I thought we were into post-post-post-modernism by now.

 

Thanks-I appreciate it.

I got my vinyl copy of MPP yesterday but haven't listened to it yet. I picked up the CD when it was first released so I'm curious to compare the two. This thread has really got me listening to AC again, especially Sung Tongs and Feels.

I think I agree with you mistermuse. As great as MPP is, it just doesn't blow my mind like Feels does. I listened to it today on the way to work (along with some of Sung Tongs) and once The Purple Bottle came on I was absolutely floored all over again.

 

Please define.

 

I have Sung Tongs on LP but I discovered it on CD, and I don't remember it sounding bad.
I never heard Feels on CD.
Hope that helps a little.

 

Sorry just looking through this thread for the first time and felt compelled to answer the question since no one else did. They are from the Baltimore area...3 of the 4 went to the Park School (think a K-12 version of Brown University, considered elite but very loose in structure) and Panda Bear is from Roland Park, arguably the nicest/wealthiest part of Baltimore City, near Johns Hopkins University, and attended Waldorf Schools in Maryland and Pennsylvania ...

as for the name of the album, says wikipedia:

The download coupon card included with the vinyl release explains the album's name:

"Merriweather Post Pavilion is an outdoor music venue in a place called Symphony Woods in Columbia, Maryland. It was designed by Frank Gehry in the 1960's, and they've been having concerts there from 1967 up through today. We used to go to shows there while growing up and have fond memories of times spent on the lawn. For most of the time we've been playing together, both in Animal Collective and the years before, we've tried to make music that would be deserving of an amazing outdoor listening experience. As both a name and a place, Merriweather Post Pavilion represents this for us."

Fun Fact: Jackson Browne's recorded version of "Running on Empty" was recorded at Merriweather on 8/27/77.

OK, I'm done playing historian.

 

spinning the vinyl right now. pretty intriguing but i think i'm too tired to wrap my head completely around it at the moment. the third song, with the lurching beat, was annoying at first but then became one of the best things i've heard in a while. (lars horntveth's kaleidoscope may be the best, though.) the MPP vinyl is pristine and quiet on this second pressing.

 

Civilization and its Discontents...

I prefer the term 'Pre-Extinctionist'...


cheers,

 

Are you 2012 friendly?

 

Mayan Shmayan...

I think it is just a year in one (of manY) calendars, which just happens to end then...

I think that well suffer along quite nicely for a decent spell past then...

Otherwise, I'd be selling off my Cds like crazy...


cheers,

 

second time through and i still prefer side 4, especially the last song. reminds me of the recent ruby suns album. i think the album will continue to grow on me but the sound is a little claustrophobic.

 

Well I've been listening a lot to my vinyl copy of MPP (second pressing) and I'm enjoying this album now even more than when I was listening to it on CD. I think it sounds much better on vinyl, but hey, I'll admit up front that I'm biased towards vinyl anyway.

My copy plays dead silent through the first 3 sides and only during 'No More Runnin' on side 4 is there a few ticks and a bit of noise. Otherwise a great pressing!

I downloaded the album in the WAV format which was cool to have as well.