Tag Archives: sung tongs

#867: Animal Collective – Mouth Wooed Her

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Hard to know where to start with this one. Back in 2014 when I was properly getting into Animal Collective and heard Sung Tongs for the first time, my personal highlights became clear straight away. I certainly didn’t consider ‘Mouth Wooed Her’ to be one of them. I guess I just thought it was too strange. And, I mean, you couldn’t really blame me for that initial reaction. Avey Tare is not your average singer. And the track changes its time signature and shifts through many movements… it’s one to get your head around.

Then one day that I couldn’t possibly recall, it was definitely years after 2014, I heard it once more and it all seemed to make a lot more sense. Sometimes that’s the way it goes when it comes to music. But would I say it’s my favourite track on the album? Probably not. But I appreciate it quite a bit. It is weird, but simultaneously quite flowing and free to the ears. I think I would put that down to its waltz timing. And the vocal melody’s pretty memorable to. Avey Tare sings along with every downbeat (I believe, I’m not a music theorist) which gives the track that little bit of a bounce. It’s like the vocals are jumping with every delivery of a line in a verse. It takes a strange turn at about 1:40 in, which I’m sure confused on that first listen. Still does now, just a bit. But then after a quiet moment it launches back into the final few verses and all sounds good again. That is until about a minute later when the slow breakdown section starts with hazy acoustic guitars, claps, and Avey Tare singing that he needs mouth water repeatedly for the rest of the song’s duration. ‘Mouth Wooed Her’ is play on ‘mouth water’, by the way. A lot of wordplay happens in the song titles on this album.

So, yeah. Not my favourite, but won’t skip whenever it appears on a train journey. Will this post sway you to give the track a listen and throw you down an Animal Collective-shaped rabbit hole? Well, that’s questionable. But at the very least, I tried.

#719: Animal Collective – Leaf House

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In previous posts I’ve mentioned here and there that there have been certain bands who were essentially the soundtrack to a year in my life. The Beatles were 2009/10. The Who were 2010/11. Well, Animal Collective covered my first year of university – 2013/14 for anyone invested. Sung Tongs was the third album of theirs that I got around to listening to, following Merriweather Post Pavilion and Strawberry Jam. It took a few listens for both to set in, but once they did they became two of my new favourite albums very quickly. Why I chose Sung Tongs next I’m not too sure but I was certainly interested as to what it would sound like.

‘Leaf House’ is the weird, mysterious but captivating and attention-grabbing opening to Sung Tongs; there definitely isn’t any other album opener that’s quite like it. A distorted whirring sound opens the track before suddenly jerking into the song’s main rhythm, formed by booming tom-toms, jumping acoustic guitars and bouncing vocals between David Portner (Avey Tare) and Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) that come frequently throughout the whole album. Despite it not being a typical 4-on-the-floor toe tapper, the herky-jerky percussion alongside the general warm tone of the track can send me into a trance if I’m really focusing on the music.

For a long time fans theorised that the track was influenced by the novel House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, due to them both sharing themes of cats and a man who doesn’t go outside much. Portner revealed it was more about Lennox’s childhood house, with some lyrics written in regards to the passing of Lennox’s father. It’s quite a sad song when looking into it but some of that tension is alleviated by the “kitties” outro. Is it strange? For some first time listeners it could be considered to be. But once you get it, it never leaves.