So good it hz
Salient has long been a font of journalistic integrity (read: treachery), whose writers belong to an upstanding tradition of innovative experimentation (read: laziness). Thus when the eagerly-anticipated Animal Collective ‘Centipede Hz’ finally hit the internet I immediately logged on to facebook to ambush fellow writer Chris McIntyre to guage his thoughts; this is a verbatim transcript of the conversation that transpired. Read at your own risk; grammar purists and the half-way literate need not apply.
PM (Philip McSweeney): Hey man, this is a pretty decent rip of the new AnCo :’) http://[REDACTED]
CM (Chris McIntyre): I liked the album on first listen. Wasn’t paying full attention but it’s definitely a really good album
PM: WASN’T PAYING FULL ATTENTION? That’s it yr out of the will, McIntyre. Actually are u free to chat about it at some stage?
CM: Yeah Sure! It’s like.. Ariel Pink meets Beach Boys. It’s angrier than MPP, at first I thought less accessible, but after more listens I think it’s just as accessible.
PM: I agree actually! I think it’s probably the most accessible and immediate album they’ve dropped so far but there’s nothing here for listeners to really LATCH onto on a first time listen, y’know? It’s an album rife with paradox
CM: Is there any song in particular which stands out for you? For me there’s a real absence of singular memorable moments.
PM: I really love ‘New Town Burnout’. The way it slowly unfurls until all hell breaks loose, it’s just so euphoric.
CM: In general I’d say it eschews conventional song structure. Which is frustrating and liberating in equal measure. Feel at times it didn’t hang together that well; but in saying that I never felt lost while I was listening to it. And there were no real prolonged dull patches.
PM: I’m pretty serious about my AnCo- whenever someone tells me MPP or Here Comes the Indian is their favourite AC album I brandish my copy of Feels at them while salivating in a frenzy of indignation etc. So i guess my love of their unusual song structure may come off as misguided fanboyism. But I think that this album works as a return to the exuberance of their earlier work, but with the ‘pop sensibilities’ (God i hate that phrase) of MPP thrown in.
CM: You verbally brandished Feels at me; I still think MPP is my favourite. You talked before of how it’s an album of paradox, I feel that comes in sonically with the combination of ‘popism’s and the borderline-industrial, spacey sounds used. Also with the referencing ofthe pop sounds (also: Pet Sounds) through the aforemetioned non-conventional song structure.
PM: Mmm, and i definitely feel that’s a regression (thought not necessarily a bad one) from MPP, where there was so much more of a pop focus. Example: Moonjock. When i first listned to it I had the same sense of wide-eyed wonder that i did hearing In The Flowers BUT It climaxes prematurely so they can explore more layers. *insert entendre here*
In saying that, I don’t think that the layers to the music need to be parsed through or make it more difficult or whatever; they work as a conduit which channels the pop elements and invigorates them. I reck[on] the results are blissful
CM: Feel like their next album will sound like it was recorded entirely in a factory making prop guns for space movies.
PM: haha
CM: 4/5 ‘Busy, yet measured’. That’s the best I can adjectivise. Like you said, an album of paradoxes so one adjective can’t desribe it well. Unless that adjective is ‘paradoxical’
PM: probably 4 for me plus .2 of devotee’s bias. ‘kaleidoscopic and visceral’.
CM: But in the kaleidoscope are pretty, bright coloured shapes.
PM: God_yes Lots of good material here sonny jim think i might just publish this
CM: haha you wouldn’t PM: i beg to differ