ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
Centipede Hz
WIG274
Domino Recording Co. 2012
11 Tracks. 53mins36secs

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Once upon a time, Animal Collective were little more than a bunch of American indie kids with a particularly pronounced taste for unruly lo-fi leftfield pop music which they recorded wherever they could or fancied, and that could include recording a whole album under a porch, protected from the street by a plastic cover, using only a handful of minidisc players. Nowadays, Animal Collective is arguably the biggest underground experimental outfit around, capable of selling out big venues from the West Coast of the US to London, Paris and beyond. They haven’t actually been ‘underground’ for quite some time of course, but the term still probably qualifies them best.

Whilst their first records were self-released or appeared on labels such as Catsup Plate or Paw Tracks, an imprint set up by Animal Collective as an offshoot of Carpark Records, landing a deal with Fat-Cat in 2004 seemingly coincided with their profile rapidly rising, not only with college radio networks but also with the European public. Continue Reading »

The noughties have seen probably the most radical changes in the music industries since the advent of the record. Consumption habits have dramatically moved from traditional to digital formats, music has been increasingly seen as something to steal rather than to buy, and listening habits means that nowadays, the album is becoming increasingly redundant. Or is it? Whereas it had, at least in some circles, become totally acceptable to fill records with substandard music, it is now essential for artists to create consistent pieces of work if they want to retain the attention of their audience. The last ten years have delivered their fair share of hits and misses, and this list doesn’t pretend to be in any way shape or form exhaustive. This is just, in no particular order, the definitive list of the 20 albums that have defined the noughties at themilkfactory.

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Twelve months compiled into just twenty albums. From the thousands of records released each year, it is difficult to get even a handful on the site, and even more difficult to decide which ones were the best of the lot. This is however the twenty albums that have marked 2009 for themilkfactory.

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ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
Merriweather Post Pavilion
WIGCD216
Domino Recording Co. 2009
11 Tracks. 54mins42secs

It has been a long and tortuous journey that’s taken Animal Collective from their arid beginnings (Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished and Danse Manatee) to the hypnotic done-infused Here Comes The Indian and Campfire Songs. In 2004, they joined one of Britain’s finest imprints, Fat-Cat and adopted a more structured approach to their songs, culminating in the rather splendid Feels (2005) and Strawberry Jam, released in 2007 on Domino, a label conveniently strongly implanted on both sides of the Atlantic. But, as strong as these two records were, they were simple blueprints for the band’s latest effort, their ninth album in as many years. Continue Reading »

Animal Collective have got the knack for reinventing themselves continuously while somehow pretty much never bulging at all, having taken a sinuous path from Avey Tare and Panda Bear’s original lo-fi smudges of Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished to the more accessible and poppier Feels And Strawberry Jam. Their latest effort, Merriweather Post Pavilion, sees the Collective’s trademark hypnotic sound seriously electronically enhanced, as if Strawberry Jam had been dipped in Detroit grooves and properly disfigured by heavy doses of acid. Animal Collective, in a trio configuration in the absence of Deakin, gave the tracks off Merriweather a thorough airing at Koko, kick-starting the show with In The Flowers and Taste, then scanning through Bluish, Summertime Clothes or Daily Routine Continue Reading »

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
Water Curses
RUG287CD/RUG287T
Domino Recording Co 2008
04 Tracks. 18mins05secs
Format: CDS/12″/Digital

The journey on which Animal Collective embarked some years ago has taken them from the thoroughly experimental to the surprisingly straightforward without ever going about it the easy way. In recent years, their records have become more melodic and song-based. Their last couple of inputs for Fat-Cat swapped the burning exuberance of early records for much more structured and elegant records. Last year’s Strawberry Jam album, the collective’s first full length release on Domino, showed that, although the band have polished their act, they remained as inventive with their music and have developed a truly unique sound.

Following the all-out pop effervescence of Strawberry Jam, Water Curses catches the band in a much reflective mood, their colourful songs stripped down, leaving vocals and melodies exposed. Continue Reading »

AVEY TARE & KRÍA BREKKAN
Pullhair Rubeye
PAW015
Paw Tracks 2007
08 Tracks. 31mins33secs

In 1975, Lou Reed, already established as the hippest rock star of his time, released a double-album of atonal, feedback-drenched, amelodic noise, entitled Metal Machine Music. In the years since, the reasons behind the creation and release of the album continue to be heavily debated: was he trying to escape a record contract? Did he wish to alienate his audience? Or was he just trying something new, and screw what the teenyboppers thought? In time, MMM became a genesis record for noise musicians who, unlike most listeners and critics at the time, actually took it seriously.

Now it’s 2007. The music landscape is different from 1975, but in many ways it’s also the same; this is to say, an artist really going out there and experimenting – as innocent as it may be in intention – can still shock and upset its core audience, no matter how open-minded they were thought to be. Continue Reading »

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
Strawberry Jam
WIGCD199
Domino Recording Co. 2007
09 Tracks. 43mins31secs

Two years after the wonderful Feels, the quartet of Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist and Deacon reconvene on Strawberry Jam, Animal Collective’s seventh album, their first for Domino, and it is very much business as usual. Except that Animal Collective don’t really ‘do’ usual. If they have undoubtedly developed a unique musical style, each one of their albums has seen them go in new directions, taking them from the molecular drones of Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished (2000) and the lo-fi of Campfire Songs (2003), to the luxuriance of Here Comes The Indian (2003), the psychedelic brushes of Sung Tongs (2004) and folk grain of Feels. Continue Reading »

PANDA BEAR
Person Pitch
PAW14
Paw Tracks 2007
07 Tracks. 45mins49secs

Person Pitch, Panda Bear’s third solo album, is a rather more luxurious and vibrant affair than its predecessors. While his 1997 eponymous lo-fi debut refused to decide between Casio-style knob tweaking and folk songs, its follow up, Young Prayer, released in 2004, dedicated to his recently deceased father, was much more sombre and atmospheric. In the last year, Panda Bear, real name Noah Lennox, got married, became a father and moved to Lisbon, where the album was recorded. On this latest opus, he lets loose and assembles a magnificent collection of uplifting and gently psychedelic avant pop. Continue Reading »

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
People
12FAT060 / CDFAT060
Fat-Cat Records 2006
04 Tracks. 18mins55secs

Although coming out over a year after Animal Collective’s enchanting Feels, three of the four songs featured on this EP, People, Tikwid and My Favorite Colors, were actually recorded during the same sessions. A slow-burning piece which builds up over its entire course, the title track shares more than a few common genes with songs like Banshee Beat or Loch Raven. Yet, as words are replaced with incantations and strummed drones seem to materialise, People recalls some of the band’s compositions circa Here Comes The Indian. Continue Reading »

PANDA BEAR
Bro’s
12FAT059
Fat-Cat Records 2006
02 Tracks. 17mins47secs

Panda Bear brought the Fat-Cat 2006 release schedule to a close with his solo debut for the label, Bro’s, so it was only fair that Animal Collective would lead the Cat’s 2007 parade with their latest offering. Both come only weeks after Paw Tracks re-released the band’s rare live album Hollinndagain.

Of these two releases, Panda Bear’s is definitely the most inspiring. Coming ahead of a split twelve inch with Excepter and his third solo album, both due on Paw Tracks, and recorded last year in Noah Lennox’s home in Lisbon, this EP features two versions of the title track. Continue Reading »