Animal
Collective
recently
played their 2004 album Sung
Tongs in full for Pitchfork’s 21st
birthday. As I watched a bootleg
of the performance, I found myself
falling back in time, a slave to the
wanderings of my mind and its
melancholic musings.
“Sweet summer night, and I’m
stripped to my sheets / Forehead is
leaking, my AC squeaks / A voice
from the clock says ‘You’re not
gonna get tired’ / My bed is a pool
and the walls are on fire”
I’m barely conscious, drifting
in and out of sleep in the back of
my family’s 2001 Honda Odyssey.
We’re driving down to South
Carolina for spring break, and the
van’s air conditioning is shot. Ten
more hours until we reach Folly
Beach — population 2,600 — the
quiet, seaside tourist destination
my parents have selected for the
final vacation before my high
school graduation. Later this week,
Sufjan Stevens will release Carrie
and Lowell, and I will become
obsessed. As listening for the
ride down, though, I’ve asked my
girlfriend what albums I should
download. She recommends five or
six, but the only one I remember is
Animal Collective’s Merriweather
Post Pavilion (2009).
One listen through and I
was confused. After a few more
admittedly
drowsy
attempts,
I still couldn’t understand the
appeal. The songs took too long to
get anywhere. They were boring
and had an oddly dark quality;
Sometimes I still describe Animal
Collective’s music as sounding
evil. Nonetheless, I felt like I had
to choose at least one song to say
that I really liked. I settled on
“Guys Eyes,” a tune with plenty
of pleasant layers and harmonies
that could only be inspired by the
Beach Boys. Just under a year ago, I
actually looked up the lyrics to the
song, leaving me without a doubt
that it is purely and proudly a song
about masturbation. “So I used my
mind / And I used my hand / It was
what I want to do,” Noah Lennox
(aka Panda Bear) slyly croons,
allowing the more naïve listener
plausible deniability.
“I really want to show my girl
that I want her / If I could purge all
the urges that I have and keep them
for you / I really want to show my
girl that I need her / I keep it locked
right now”
Around the same time, senior
year of high school, I started
reading Pitchfork. I didn’t know all
that much about music — not that
one has to or even should in order
to enjoy it — and my favorite artists
were Rise Against, Avicii and The
Head and the Heart. I had joined
Spotify late in 2012, the beginning
of my sophomore year of high
school, and revisiting my earliest
playlists now is funny, if not
wince-inducing. One in particular,
entitled
“nighttime,”
bounces
between Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Iron & Wine, Ellie Goulding, City
and Colour, OneRepublic and
Neutral Milk Hotel, among various
others. It’s a mix that I’m not sure I
could stomach today, but one with
songs that still hold a special place
in my heart.
I hate to say that Pitchfork was
the sole resource used in my quest
to discover my taste — aimless
listening on Pandora can only
take you so far — for two reasons.
First, there’s something inherently
dangerous about idolizing one
publication’s
preferences
over
another’s
—
something
I’ve
been guilty of on more than one
occasion. At the end of the day, an
album review is only one writer’s
opinion. Second, Pitchfork really
wasn’t my only resource. Right
around the same time I immersed
myself in the publication, I realized
that many of my friends were also
beginning to discover how much
music was really out there. We
began to have conversations about
Kendrick Lamar, Passion Pit,
MGMT, Bon Iver … the list goes on.
“If I don’t think you know just
what you’re doing / You pretend to
know exactly all the things you keep
on moving”
Our listening didn’t go very
deep, and there’s no way we really
knew what we were talking about
— I’m pretty sure I still generally
don’t — but we were learning about
music and about ourselves. The
way that we listened changed, as
did what listening meant. We were
no longer beholden to our parents’
tastes. Instead, the music that we
liked, or chose to like, became a sort
of identifier. It was a way to align
ourselves with certain beliefs, a
particular aesthetic, people we
thought were cool. Discovering a
new artist felt personal and unique
and good. Looking back, my first
real romantic relationship (with
the
aforementioned
girlfriend)
was initially based almost entirely
on music recommendations we’d
send back and forth and the
conversations that would come
from them. She adored punk folk-
rockers AJJ, and I showed her San
Fermin, with their soaring brass
melodies and oh so crisp vocals.
It sounds silly, almost fake,
like I’m putting music on too
tall a pedestal, but my earliest
understandings of the world truly
beyond my hometown of East
Grand Rapids came from music.
AJJ’s “American Tune” (“So if I
see a penny on the ground / I leave
it alone or fucking flip it / I’m a
straight white male in America /
I’ve got all the luck I need”) was
my introduction to the concept
of privilege. Perfume Genius,
Blood Orange and Owen Pallett
illustrated what it means to be
gay in America while Kendrick
and Vince Staples detailed their
struggles as Black men, both
realities that I still learn about
every day. At the same time, Pedro
The Lion’s discography led me to
questions about my faith and about
who and what people actually are.
“People / Always got to wash
them at their ends.
***
Fast forward to just under
a year after Folly Beach. I’m
walking between Mason Hall and
the UMMA, Animal Collective’s
Strawberry Jam playing through
my headphones. It’s the beginning
of a new semester — winter of my
freshman year at U of M.
“What’s pain? What’s sadness
anyway? It’s not crying like a child
/ What’s graying? What’s aging
anyway? It’s not growing in the
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
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ACROSS
1 Cried on cue, say
6 Nimble-fingered
10 Auntie on
Broadway
14 Africa’s Sierra __
15 Butterlike topping
16 Beatnik’s
“Understood”
17 *Grocery store
19 Join the chorus
20 Like the chains in
a chain necklace
21 Camp beds
22 Swear (to)
25 Pair in a dinghy
27 Employee’s
reward
28 *Vessel for a
cheesy dip
33 Cone-dropping
trees
34 Recycling
receptacle
35 Maps within maps
36 Therapists’ org.
37 *Ballroom dance
that’s also a
phonetic
alphabet “F”
39 Shatner’s
“__War”
40 Cash in, as
coupons
42 “I __ only kidding”
43 Shoulder muscle,
for short
44 *All-terrain high
shoe
46 Sandburg and
Sagan
47 Highest in quality
48 Gives a thumbs-
up
49 Wrinkle-removing
injection
52 Acquires, as
debts
55 State firmly
56 Stream crossing
for pedestrians ...
and what is
literally provided
by the interior
letters in the
answers to
starred clues
60 Filet mignon
order
61 World power
initials until 1991
62 How contracts
are signed
63 Iditarod vehicle
64 Fishing rod
partner
65 Occur as a result
DOWN
1 1980s TV ET
2 Corporate VIP
3 Also
4 Tiresomely long
5 Downfall
6 Nerdy sort
7 Sommer of
cinema
8 Get nourishment
from
9 Trike rider
10 Applies
incorrectly
11 Score after deuce
12 Ermine cousin
13 They’re often
scrambled
18 Tiny farm
denizen
21 Main impact
22 Repetitive
barking
23 Taiwan’s capital
24 Rabble-rousing
outburst
26 “Hasta la vista”
28 Predicament
29 Quarterback’s
“Snap the ball at
the second ‘hut’”
30 Fizzles (out)
31 Verdi opera with
Desdemona
32 “You should be
ashamed!”
34 Lays an egg on
stage
37 UPS alternative
38 Word before or
after pack
41 Nudged sharply
43 Best Western
competitor
45 Lazy
46 Underwood who
performs the
“Sunday Night
Football” opening
48 Classroom
stand-in
49 Happy hour
places
50 Mirror shape
51 Ran like mad
53 Smoke detector?
54 PC corner key
56 Calico coat
57 Put down
58 Oxlike antelope
59 Barely manage,
with “out”
By Gail Grabowski and Bruce Venzke
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/22/18
01/22/18
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Monday, January 22, 2018
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
A proper home: on Animal Collective and finding mine
SEAN LANG
Daily Arts Writer
wild”
I am scared.
The day I come back from
holiday
break,
I
hallucinate
my friends’ voices outside my
dorm room, thinking they had
followed me back from home.
Maybe they’re going to surprise
me. Their breaks are all almost a
week longer than mine, so it’s not
unfathomable. After more than a
minute of wondering whether that
really was Casey, Tristen, Elliot
and Corey whom I hear outside,
I get up from my bed and check
the hallway. No one. The idea was
ridiculous anyway. I check again,
just to be sure.
“And an obsession with the past
is like a dead fly / And just a few
things are related to the ‘old times’ /
Though we did believe in magic and
we did die”
No, they haven’t planned a
surprise visit. It really was too
much to ask, but for some reason
I’m still sad they aren’t there. I’ve
just endured a full semester of
friendlessness, save for my RA,
and I can’t help but remember the
faces of high school acquaintances
when I told them the best friend I
had made was someone whose job
it was to make me feel welcome.
The two weeks at home for holiday
break were paradise, one that I
loathed to relinquish. “Maybe I
don’t belong here,” I think. “Maybe
I should just go home.” Though a
bit dramatic, the sentiment was
real, especially when I was in the
thick of it.
“Our homes are all white / And
we go dancing on a lake / And
sleds will carry us tonight / And
snowflakes will blow us on our way”
One of my friends whom I had
hoped would visit (and actually
has many times since) had long
insisted that I listen to Animal
Collective, and something about
my loneliness prompted me to
take his recommendation more
seriously. January of freshman
year,
I
began
listening
to
Strawberry Jam. The evil, dark
quality of the band’s work that had
previously repulsed me was now
alluring. Within hours I found
myself
completely
enamored,
practically seduced (for lack of a
better word). Where Merriweather
is lush, rolling, spacious, perfect
for spring break, Strawberry Jam is
harsh and less melodically direct.
Opener “Peacebone” begins with
chaotic noise and contains some
of Dave Portner’s (aka Avey Tare)
best screaming.
After a couple of weeks, I
decided that the album was
perfect, and one cut resonated
especially well. “I only want the
time / to do one thing that I like … /
take a walk out in the light drizzle /
at the end of the day / when there’s
no one watching,” Lennox sings
on “Chores.” After this forceful
chorus, he fades into a soft,
wordless duet with Lennox. At the
time, walking was my number-one
hobby, and something that I did
for probably an hour or two every
night.
“Do you want to stroll down the
financial street? / Our clothes might
get soaked but the buildings sleep
/ And there’s no one pushing for a
place / As we end up at an easy pace”
If I couldn’t figure out how
to make friends, I could at least
take pride in my knowledge of
the streets of Ann Arbor, of the
storefronts and shortcuts, what I
thought were the best kept secrets
of the miserable college town —
I’m not sure I can justify calling
it a city — where I found myself
ensnared. I didn’t have anyone to
walk with, but as soon as I found
someone, oh! the places we would
go.
It’s cliché, but the music
pulled me through that time. I
invested myself in this band and
felt rewarded. I dug deeper, into
Feels, into Spirit They’ve Gone,
Spirit They’ve Vanished and into
Campfire Songs. The music was
weird and unlike any other I had
ever heard. The further back I
listened, the weirder it got and the
more my fascination grew. Sounds
I had never heard before opened
up my mind to possibilities for
creation, the likes of which I had
never imagined. A song can be
anything. It can carry a narrative,
it can make no sense at all to
anyone other than the writer, it
doesn’t need to serve any purpose
and it certainly isn’t even remotely
beholden to the stifling laws of
reality.
“Feeling envy for the kid who’ll
dance despite anything / I walk out
in the flowers and feel better / If I
could just leave my body for the
night”
The group’s founding members,
Portner and Lennox, released
their first collaborative effort,
Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve
Vanished, in 2000 when they
were just 21 and 22, respectively.
The album is noisy, psychedelic
and
long-winded.
Its
hyper,
unpredictable quality makes it a
challenging listen, and if you don’t
believe me, I invite you to listen
to “Untitled.” See how long you
last. While Spirit They’ve Gone is
aggressive and difficult to parse,
something about it feels attainable.
The
narrative
structures
(or
sometimes complete lack thereof)
are nuanced but not clearly
defined, and the instrumentation
is
sparse:
synthesizer,
piano,
Lennox’s lifelike percussion and
the occasional acoustic guitar.
This album was recorded largely
in Portner’s parents’ home, and it’s
not difficult to tell.
Portner and Lennox used the
tools they had at hand in the limited
space that was available to them
to create something completely
original. Though the album is
rough around the edges, especially
before
it
was
professionally
remastered, they pioneered a new
sound. They aren’t snobbish about
their music, and they certainly
don’t put an excessive quantity of
effort into maintaining a heavily
curated image. They proved to me
that I could make something. I just
needed to start.
“I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, someday,
someday… / Someday, someday,
someday,
someday…
/Someday,
someday, someday, someday…”
What was even more exciting
was the way that these two
20-somethings
were
expressly
against tradition, or at least against
a blind acceptance of the path in
front of them. Before the release
of Sung Tongs in 2004, all but one
of the now four band members
decided to drop out of school in
order to focus on music. A pretty
hardy move, and Portner has
recalled during interviews how he
spent no insignificant amount of
time collecting on unemployment,
in and out of his parents’ house
without a reliable income.
“You don’t have to go to college”
I don’t believe that I will ever
make anything as good as what
Animal Collective has created,
and dropping out of school to
pursue music is the last thing I
would consider. I have, however,
since that fateful winter semester,
redoubled my efforts into learning
guitar. I try to write melodies
whenever I can and pen down
lyrics in my spare time, all of
them bad. Nevertheless, I feel
encouraged to continue whenever
I listen, and not just in the realm of
creating music itself.
When I first delved into Animal
Collective’s prolific discography
— Winter 2016 — it was with the
knowledge that they would be
releasing a new album, Painting
With, in mid-February. Having
been frustrated with the way
I carried myself first semester,
actively
listening
to
Animal
Collective was just one of many
decisions I made leading into the
new year. I was fed up with the
sheer amount of time I’d wasted
on Netflix, done with spending
my
Friday
nights
watching
whatever was on Comedy Central.
Something, I decided, needed to
change.
“We can get him started, yeah /
Bad mind, let me put on good habits
/ Been working to put on good
habits / Sometimes I can’t find my
good habits”
I
began
taking
chances,
reaching out to people I’d met
briefly first semester and finding
opportunities around campus. I
remember being elated when I
found someone who would go to
the San Fermin show with me that
January — someone I still regard
today as one of my closest friends.
I joined a few organizations,
including The Daily, and though
I was disappointed by the culture
of organizations in general — so
many students were just looking
for résumé padding — I met
beautiful, wonderful, optimistic
and creative people.
My application to the Arts
section of The Daily contained
a review of Animal Collective’s
Painting With. The trajectory that
began with Merriweather in 2015
and continued through Strawberry
Jam and the rest through 2016
finally found me among a group of
people who had as much a desire
to interact with the arts as I had.
They can be pretentious (as can
I), and I don’t always agree with
them, but they’ve collectively
provided me with a space where I
can be creative, self-reflective and,
above all, self-indulgent.
“Now I think it’s alright to feel
inhuman / Now I think that’s a riot
/ Now I think it’s alright we’ll sing
together / Now I think that’s a riot”
It’s difficult for me to credit
Animal Collective for my eventual
adjustment to life at college, but
the fact that my immersion in
their music coincided with an
exponential increase in my social
confidence
and
understanding
of myself as someone with a real
personality, emotions, influence
and responsibility is something I
can neither shake nor deny. What
is certain to me is that I would
not be who I am today had I never
listened to them. The degree to
which I would be different is up for
debate, and not something I want
to explore on paper — on screen?
— but still an interesting idea to
entertain.
“Am I really all the things that are
outside of me? / Would I complete
myself without the things I like
around?”
The details of this story, if one
could call it that, are personal, but
the context surrounding those
details is hopefully somewhat
universal. I’d like to think that most
university students experience a
time of extended loneliness, or at
least a transient sense of not fitting
in. Maybe my story will encourage
those who, upon reading, find
themselves
in
that
position.
Maybe a reader or two will be
intrigued by my obsession with
Animal Collective and give them
a listen. And maybe, just maybe,
those readers will find in Animal
Collective what I’ve found, or will
identify with my love for Animal
Collective through whatever band
or artist has narrated the recent
years of their own lives. Whatever
the case may be, dear reader, I
hope you’ve found something
human here.
“Oh there will be time to fish fry,
for letters by, yours truly / Yours
truly”
MUSIC NOTEBOOK