Tag Archives: merriweather post pavilion

#1337: Animal Collective – Taste

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“Am I really all the things that are outside of me?” is the first and last line of the song ‘Taste’ by Animal Collective. From my recollection, it was the only thing about the track I could remember after listening to Merriweather Post Pavilion for the first time in 2012 and being bewildered by the whole experience. I’ve written before about how I really had no context regarding Animal Collective before heading straight into hearing Merriweather…, how their live setup confused me, how it eventually became a favourite of mine etc. etc. It’s a story I won’t have to repeat again because ‘Taste’ marks the last time a song from the album will appear on here. But you get the idea, I once heard an album, didn’t get it, heard it again a couple more times, I began to understand it. And then I went into a whole Animal Collective phase that doesn’t need to be dug into here. What’s more important is the song at hand. So after Panda Bear opens the second half of Merriweather… with something of an ode to masturbation with ‘Guys Eyes’, Avey Tare takes things back to the more existential self-analysing route rather than a sexual one with ‘Taste’ straight after. The former merges into the latter with a sampled wind(?) of some kind before giving way to the looping, hypnotizing rhythm that anchors ‘Taste’ right up till its end.

I look at Genius, and it looks like ‘Taste’ goes way deeper than I thought it ever did. I kind of got the idea that it was about the topic of image. Being concerned by how the way we act, dress, look is perceived by other people. But then there are metaphors involving clothes in the song that adds a whole other level. What I’ve really appreciated about the song, though, is how, essentially from the first chorus onward, Panda Bear joins Tare on the vocals and sings an entirely different melody over the top. Not in a backup, harmonizing kind of way either, they really act as co-lead vocals. But, you know, you’ll see Tare’s lyrics everywhere because he is the “main” singer for this one. It’s just so fascinating how both vocalists diverge with their vocals, which then come together for the repeats of the final line as the song comes to its end. I always get lost in that moreso than the message. Not that that isn’t important. It’s kind of along the lines of, “Image is something we all think about. It’s just nature. But don’t go changing yourself to please other people.” And that’s pretty solid advice.

So, yeah, not the end of Animal Collective on here, but it’s the end for Merriweather Post Pavilion. It had its time. On some days, it’s my favourite by the group, but the majority of the time that title goes to Strawberry Jam. That is some good listening right there. Only four songs from MPP I managed to write about on here, and had the axes aligned and I’d gotten my act together, at least a couple posts for ‘Also Frightened’ and ‘Brother Sport’ would be found on this place too. Just use your imagination as to how those ones would go. I’m looking at this post for ‘Taste’ now and I’m thinking maybe I could have written a little more about it. I do think it’s a great song, but it came along as more a part of the package that MPP is rather than one I had a grand experience with that I needed to share, which you might in some other posts around the place. But I do appreciate it a lot, and really the song should do all the talking rather than these paragraphs underneath. When the group started playing ‘Taste’ live in 2007, it originally sounded very different. And you’ll find some people saying they prefer this earlier version. I’ll leave it to you.

#1310: Animal Collective – Summertime Clothes

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When I first heard Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2012/13, I really didn’t know what to make of it. It was an album unlike any other I’d heard before. At that time, I was firmly into standard band outfit, guitar, drums, bass guitar, rock music. There was none of that on the LP. And then I’d see MPP-era live performances on YouTube where members Avey Tare, Panda Bear and Geologist were onstage with these massive desks covered in wires and pads and other electronics. To the people who knew the band, it probably wasn’t so unusual. But from having no idea who the band was to then listening to the LP as a gateway, there was something overwhelming about it all. But I gave it another try when I was in my first year of uni, and I got my head around it then and there. It’s considered basic to say the album’s your favourite by the group. Personally, mine is Strawberry Jam. But MPP is a damn good album. Sounds like it was made in some outer Avatar-type universe rather than a studio somewhere in Mississippi.

‘Summertime Clothes’ is the fourth song on there, a very obvious single choice even if ‘My Girls’ was chosen to be the first one released from the album. In 12/8, or 4/4 time with a swing feel, the track has an infectious bounce reinforced by the kick drum and pulsing bass synthesizer. Avey Tare sings it, detailing a scene where the narrator’s twisting and turning in their bed at night, unable to sleep because it’s too darn hot in the room. They’ve gotta get out of the place. And so the narrators calls up a friend or partner, I guess you can assume the latter. Luckily, they pick up the phone and they agree to go walk around in the cool of the outside, grab a bite to eat and indulge in other activities you’d do when going out. Basically the track conveys a huge sense of happiness and comfort of being in the company of someone whose presence is very much appreciated. And, you know, that’s pretty wholesome stuff. A very simple topic to write about, but the production and delivery makes it sound a lot more glorious than it should.

Merriweather… marked a moment where vocal duties between Avey Tare and Panda Bear were somewhat equally split between the two. While predecessor Strawberry Jam was a mostly Tare-led record with Panda Bear contributing two songs and providing backing vocals here and there, MPP provided a larger Panda Bear presence throughout, with an abundance of harmonies and countermelodies to boot. And there are those aplenty just in this song alone. Yeah, Avey Tare starts the song off by himself, with a subtle warbly effect going on with his vocal, but then Panda Bear comes in on a harmony here and there, before the chorus kicks in and the two of them sing together. Always nice when the two sing in unison. During the rushing “When the sun goes down, we’ll go out again” bridge, there are some “Oh-oh” backing vocals by Panda that are buried in the mix and pan all over the place. I thought that was a cool little feature. And I also like the lone ‘paarp’ that occurs after Avey Tare sings “Don’t cool off”. It doesn’t need to be there, but it’s also a nice extra touch. There’s small odd moments like that sprinkled throughout the album that my odd self appreciates thoroughly. But this is a good song. Definitely worth 4-and-a-half minutes of your time.

#746: Animal Collective – Lion in a Coma

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Believe it or not, ‘Lion in a Coma’ was the first track from Merriweather Post Pavilion that struck me as being the most catchy and memorable. I went through the album for at least the second or third time while in my first semester as a fresher in university – it sounded like nothing I had ever heard before so I was quite perplexed as to what I was hearing the first time, that perplexity turned into admiration afterwards – and it was this song that I was humming to myself while walking down the road or going to my lecture. At that point I didn’t know what the lyrics were, but it was a song that was definite memorable melody. Weird time signature too.

There’ll be some who’ll agree with me and think “Why say ‘believe it or not’? I think [this song]’s great!”. Well, I’ve been on the Animal Collective subreddit and there are those who hear that Jew’s harp sample at the beginning and that’s a wrap for them. They can’t go on. I’ve never thought it was obnoxious. Once Avey Tare begins with his rambling lyricism, that harp blends into the background and from then on my main focus is on the fat rhythm set from the low end. I guess it’s the bass drum of the song, even though there are no drums present on it. The track is definitely something you can dance to, though not in normal ways – more like erratically moving your limbs and head to fit the beat and the spaces in between.

If you’re looking sideways at the title, it’s a play on the words ‘lying in a coma’. This song sees Avey Tare in a general sense of confusion and something of an identity crisis. He gets worried in times when you would think he would be at his most happiest and this sends him into a mode of overthinking. All this is perfectly matched with the odd time signature (9/8) and the way all of the lyrics such seemed to fall freely from Tare’s mouth. It’s a busy song, a lot goes on. One of my favourites from the album though.

My iPod #478: Animal Collective – Guys Eyes

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A Panda Bear-penned track that had been around and heard in a much more mellow and calming form circa 2007 with the name “Song for Ariel“, “Guys Eyes” came to be the final result of the Animal Collective treatment the original track underwent and was placed as the seventh track on the group’s 2009 album Merriweather Post Pavilion.

The song sees Noah Lennox singing about his desire to please ‘[his] girl’. She isn’t there. And at the end of the song it is suggested that he has pleased himself instead of waiting for her.

In its new form the track possessed a bouncier 12/8 rhythm, weird pitch-shifted vocals that are buried in the mix, forceful stop-starting bass drums, flickering percussion and glorious counter-melodies. And those are only in the first few verses of the thing. About 1 1/2 minutes in, the song builds into this hypnotizing groove as Avey Tare and Panda Bear repeatedly sing the words ‘need her’. The walls close in all around as the tension continues to build as these two words are burrowed into your mind, until you’re snapped back into reality once returning to the melodies established in the opening verses for the closing moments.