Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam (Domino) Review

Avant-Garde music has always had its place. Whether it's for the music fan who likes to push their listening to the extreme, or those who have had one too many sips of the mushroom tea and absinthe chaser, its audience is still a relatively minor one compared to the McFlys of our day. But here comes Animal Collective's seventh album (sixth in the studio) and it promises to open the doors to many new fans....full text In March, Animal Collective's Panda Bear (aka Noah Lennox) had his breakout moment with the release of Person Pitch. It was his first solo album that didn't sound like what we'd previously heard from Animal Collective; sample-heavy and based on loops, the album's songwriting devices favored expansion and contraction over conventional chord changes. Person Pitch reflected Panda's interest in dance music-- even when it veered toward the angelic pop innocence forever associated with the harmony-drenched hits of the 1960s and 70s. Both the album and its transcendent centerpiece, "Bros", are deservedly being widely considered among the year's best....full text On the back of Strawberry Jam, it might be useful to compare Animal Collective with Mercury Rev. Certainly, the latter band were once something of experimental proposition – fronted by the unhinged personality of David Baker and with a blurry and unfocussed sound to match. This formula frequently produced glorious records, but it was not made to last. Hence, in the late 90’s the Rev took a right-turn and cut their one bona fide classic, Deserters Songs.


In 2007, Animal Collective (that’s Panda Bear, Avey Tare, Deakin and Geologist) hold a similar position. After six albums of wayward hit-and-miss experimentalism, previous outing, Feels revealed a more linear approach to music-making. Not linear in the accepted sense of the word; but at times there was the definite whiff of ‘chorus’ and ‘verse’, even if these soon descended into a bubbling mix of chaos....full text