For the last few years, pop experimentalists Animal Collective have straddled the line between the cerebral and the base. At a mostly successful performance at Chicago’s Vic Theatre earlier this week, Animal Collective veered towards the former.
Animal Collective’s early music was primal, intensely joyful, and vaguely folk-ish (exemplified on the albums Here Comes The Indian and Sung Tongs). The band’s newest album, Strawberry Jam, has seen the group reinvent itself, placing the synthetic elements of their sound at the forefront.
At Monday’s concert, the three-piece lineup relied almost exclusively on electronic instruments, seemingly abandoning the bent acid folk of years past. Multi-instrumentalists Avey Tare and Panda Bear only occasionally reached for live percussion, and just a wee bit of electric guitar. Though Strawberry Jam was the star of the evening, the group even electronically reinterpreted older material such as “Who Could Win A Rabbit” and “Leaf House.”
For a fan of 2004 album Sung Tongs, this may have been disheartening, but really, the elements of their early primitivism are still intact — call and response, tension, release, polyrhythms, and most importantly, repetition. Folky or not, the group’s total submission to their otherworldly music remains compelling.
After all is said and done, we’re still just animals, albeit animals with highly developed frontal lobes. Animal Collective may be allowing their frontal lobes to speak more than ever, but remain purposely primitive at their core. Some fans might cavil the rather artless new arrangements and overextended instrumental breaks, but this misses the point. Animals are constantly evolving. Likewise, the Animal Collective are evolving. With concerts as compelling as this, most of us animals will be glad to wait for the new direction to pay off.
– Mike McGovern
Animal Collective: www.myanimalhome.net
Domino: www.dominorecordco.com