Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Animal Collective are weird. That's all there is to it. It only takes one listen to songs like "Peacebone" or "Infant Dressing Table" or, most importantly, "Who Could Win A Rabbit?" to know that they are a little bit out there. To most, in fact, they are far from what you would call "accessible" and quite possibly outside of the realm of "tolerable music." Nevertheless, Animal Collective is a band that has wedged itself into the canon of independent music over the course of the last decade because they are weird.

However, in 2007, the band did two things to distance themselves from the likes of songs like "Who Could Win A Rabbit?" in two ways: 1) they released Strawberry Jam, which is just as avant garde as the rest of their catalogue, but with added coherence and pop sensibitlities, and 2) frontman Panda Bear released Person Pitch, an album that has been described, by many a person, as an album that Brian Wilson should have released. Pitchfork's review of the album talked about how, over the course of the year, it felt as though it changed with the season, from feeling bright and excited in the summer, to mellow and reminiscent in the fall. In short, it was an album that adapted to everything around it.

Merriweather Post Pavilion does the same thing, but on a smaller scale. On the opening track, "In The Flowers," slow and quiet guitar and distant vocals swirl as Avey Tare sings, "Feeling envy for the kid who danced in spite of anything/And we’re out in the flowers and feel better," and when he sings "If I could just leave my body for the night," the track explodes into a shower of technicolor, with Avey singing at the top of his lungs.

"In The Flowers" segues into "My Girls," and from there on, the album can only be described as "resplendent." Topics range from squeaking air conditioners ("Summertime Clothes") to the sidewalks of Chinatown ("Lion in a Coma"), and never, even in the quieter tracks, does the album fall away from encapsulating a season in the same way the Beach Boys managed the same with Pet Sounds. Only on Person Pitch has the band managed to take a still of the emotion behind simply living life. Merriweather serves as a photograph of a group of friends at the beach in June, as empty Corona bottles near a bonfire in July, as a lover tangled in the sheets of a rented beach house in the middle of August.

It's all here: the slowly building joy that the season has come ("My Girls"), the emotional devastations of the loss of a summer love ("No more runnin says my mind/All this movement has just/Proved your kisses are too fine" - "No More Runnin'"), and a final, wonderous celebration of the sun, yelling, pleading, "stay young, god damn you" (Until fully grown/You got a real good shot/Won't help to hold inside/Keep it real keep it real shout out" - "Brother Sport").

When the final, resplendent shouts of "Brother Sport" have died out, just like the nervous light of September creeping through the blinds, there's a deep hunger pang, because you know that you need more. This is the remarkable beauty of Merriweather Post Pavilion: it's flawed, and it's humid, but just like the summer, you know that soon, very soon, you can enjoy it again. Animal Collective may, in fact, be a very weird band, but sometimes it takes the weirdos to make you yearn for the sun to come back.

Yes, Stereogum, Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca is The Best Album of the Year

Two months ago, give or take, I started my now-very-infrequent segment The Nightly Three. One of the first albums I reviewed was Bitte Orca, the new Dirty Projectors album. I gave it a 4.5. I personally believe that, after two months, I need to correct this wrong. In short, my belief is that, just 6 months into the year, Dirty Projectors have stopped the race for Best of the Year dead in its tracks, with what is certainly one of the most flawless albums of the decade at large.

Since listening to it initially, I have listened to it more times than I can even count. In short, it's the finest work that Dirty Projectors have put out, so much more accessible than The Getty Address, despite the grandiose nature of that work. Each track packs a lyrical quality that breaks the barriers confining conventional songwriting, in favor of emotional exploration, from the light-hearted ("And what hits the spot, yeah, like Gatorade? You and me baby, hittin' the spot all night") to the sweeping, moving, stunning, and beautiful ("Geranium kisser/Skin like silk and face like glass/Don't confront me with my failures/Kiss me with your mouth open/For your love, better than wine"). Somehow, Dave Longstreth manages to reinvent the wheel of pop music with Bitte Orca, as is completely obvious on the oft' cited Mariah Carey-inspired "Stillness is the Move" and the tremendously fun "Remade Horizon."

Dave Longstreth

Longstreth also woofs and warps the way conventional song structure works, with more cuts than a goth girl's forearm (as is evident by the movement breaks in de facto title track "Useful Chamber"), and completely skewing the line between what is sung elegantly ("Two Doves"), what is charming ("Stillness is the Move") and what is almost outlandish ("Cannibal Resource"), but somehow, with the help of his cover stars Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman, rips to shreds the way musicians should play, write, and even sing. The contained and focused fuzz and pop of Bitte Orca, dare I say it, has almost singlehandedly re-written what pop means.

With a bombastic and crackly voice, in the chorus of the opener, "Cannibal Resource," Longstreth sings a line that seems almost fitting, considering all of my talk of how groundbreaking I believe this album is: "I think you're more than a terrified witness behind the arbitrary line." I believe that, in just 9 songs, and just over 40 minutes, he and his band have proven that the line really is arbitrary, and should be crossed and erased so stunningly more often.