Turntable roundtable: Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion

JD: So much of it is like a private language I don’t care to learn. It’s not very attention getting. It’s warbling, muddy and not sharp. But then you read that they wanted it to sound like it was recorded underwater, and, oh, okay. BD: This first song sounds like cicadas. JD: Like crickets with lasers. Critics are very misleading as to where this band is in its career arc, too. This is not a breakout record, it's more evidence of a band that doesn't want to break out. BD: Well, it seems like the tastemakers have had the story plotted out long before they heard a lick of music. This record would have gotten the attention regardless of what it sounded like. Tastemakers have been itching for them to cross over. And it’s had the perfect storm of a dead music-release season, steadily building buzz and a record that won’t make the general public immediately reach for the stop button. Because this isn’t their “pop” album, so much as their “entirely listenable” album. Besides, Feels, my favorite Animal Collective album, was their big attempt to clean up and go mainstream. But that sounded like a weaker version of old Mercury Rev. JD: This sounds like the synthesizer-toting version of Mercury Rev. BD: So, like the most recent Mercury Rev. It’s coming from the same field as Pink Floyd and Orbital. But it’s nowhere near as sonically interesting as those bands. JD: It’s not that dramatic. BD: In really good headphones, it’s not interesting at all. It might as well be in mono. There’s nothing stereo about any of this recording. Which is fine if you’re Venom, but not if you’re making an immersive psychedelic album. JD: The gauziness is a big problem with both of us. BD: It has a didgeridoo on it. But it all sort of sounds like a didgeridoo with its droning loops. This is a total rain-stick record. Didn’t Buddha Boxes make this sort of monotonous music obsolete? Still, that's its largest commercial appeal—jam band and trance crossover. What’s that band? JD: STS9? BD: Yeah! Sound Tribe Sector 9 and Disco Biscuits, things that Animal Collective fans would never allow themselves to enjoy. You’re a D.C.–area guy, so you’ll get this. Seeing how it takes its title from an outdoor concert stadium, a more fitting name for this would have been Glen Echo Park. JD: This sounds like Yes doing demos with a Casio. There’s no room to breathe in this mix. It’s suffocating. BD: Yes, it’s very un-dynamic, audiowise. Even the CD has the fidelity of a worn-out cassette tape. JD: For a trippy band, the lyrics are very literal. He wants to build a house for his girls. But there's more emotion in a fabric-softener commercial. BD: But that’s what most people don’t like about Mercury Rev. Each Rev song is like a Muppet singing, “The butterfly ate the snowflake,” or whatever. Then again, the lyrics to “Almost Frightened”—about birds mating in trees and leaves in puddles—are straight up Mercury Rev. If someone like Moby or Bono sang these lyrics, critics would rip off their heads. JD: Right, but psych records can create a scene that’s beyond the music. Syd Barrett lyrics on paper might seem like a quaint British poem, but in the song it becomes a weird world. Here, it feels like an opportunity was missed. But you can’t even pick the lyrics out. BD: Lines about wanting a house for your daughters aren’t exactly insightful, either. Whoop-de-doo, it’s paternal instinct. Weird that 22-year-olds would flip out for such sentiments. Weirder and harder to swallow—that guys in Animal Collective and their fans, people with shelves of LPs and CDs, would not “care about material things.” You know what are material things? Records. JD: The electronics sound pretty amateur. It's not a dance record just because it has synth bass. BD: Besides, there’s already a band blending psychedelic music and electro-pop to great commercial success—MGMT. JD: MGMT has a lot of qualities that people are imposing on MPP. BD: And MGMT recorded with Dave Fridmann—of Mercury Rev. People who love this record loudly shit all over MGMT, which is ironic. They pretty much utilize the same two ingredients, it’s just that MGMT is using way more of the first, poppier ingredient, and Animal Collective is tipping the scales to the more abstract, hazy end. JD: The idea that this is a club record is absurd. BD: Heavy words, coming from the Clubs editor. In line with the Dismemberment Plan and the Rapture and Cut Copy…this is yet another supposedly “teach the indie kids how to dance” albums. I hate when people say that. Here’s what people want to dance to—dance music. JD: There are weirdo electro-bass outfits doing more titillating productions. MPP is supposed to be aurally pleasurable. BD: And there’s no textural variety. Just once I wanted something to drop out of the mix, or get tweaked, or come in and out. Each track here turns on the machines and lets them run. JD: Does this record make the argument that indie bands need a strong-arm producer? BD: We might be past that era where big labels snatch gonzo bands and dump tons of cash on studio time on them to make landmark records. Will there be a Dirty, or Pony Express Record, or The Moon & Antartica? Well, I suppose so, if the bands get more creative in their collaboration. I really wish this band would have just passed final cut over to a dance producer. JD: You’re more likely to make a timeless record if you work with someone with a vision. This is not a timeless album. BD: No, of course not. Because they’ll have another one in nine months that sounds just like it that people will begin anticipating in about…three days? JD: It seems like we’re critiquing the critics more than the record. BD: Right. It’s certainly not a bad album. It’s just not the perfectly formed cultural shockwave music journos are painting it to be. JD: It feels like a 3.75, so I'd give it a 4 on our scale. BD: Ha! That’s the kind of geeky indie rating it deserves. There are some world music stinkers at the end of the record and a couple go-nowhere filler tracks. People who have invested into this sort of thing, clearly, will go nuts. Everyone else will either use it as a yoga soundtrack or wonder what the hell the hype is about.