Spirit They're Gone Spirit They've Vanished / Danse Manatee (2003)

1

Spirit They've Vanished / April and the Phantom / (untitled) / Penny Dreadfuls / Chocolate Girl / Everyone Whistling / La Rapet / Bat You'll Fly / Someday I'll Grow to Be As Tall As the Giant / Alvin Row // A Manatee Danse / Penguin Penguin / Another White Singer / Essplode / Meet the Light Child / Runnin the Round Ball / Ahhh Good Country / Lablakely Dress / In the Singing Box

(* Preliminary note: I don't get any sadistic satisfaction from giving low ratings. Initially, I wasn't even planning on wasting my time on artists I didn't at least like, but then I decided to check out some of last year's hyped albums/artists I wasn't yet familiar with, discovered (a.o.) the wonderful Devendra Banhart, the lovely Joanna Newsom and the disappointing Sung Tongs by Animal Collective. Not sure whether I was fooling myself, I decided to check out their earlier work (which was supposed to be less cutesy and even more awkward than their latest one). As a result, I'm still baffled.)

This 2-CD, which combines the first two albums by Animal Collective (initially released in 2000 and 2001, respectively), is probably the biggest pile of horse manure I've heard in at least five years. In fact, I can't even believe this (re-)release ever saw the light of day. I just… I can't. I feel bad for all the worthwhile bands out there that never garnered the buzz this band gets. I also feel bad - well, sort of - because Mojo, a music magazine that's better than the ten most popular American music zines combined, deemed it an essential underground release and gave it the rare *****-rating. I'm not even saying this won't appeal to anyone. This site isn't concerned with (pseudo-) objective statements. This may be a valuable album to some people out there, but those people sure have a talent or a gift of understanding that I do not have. What I hear is an extremely atrocious album, followed by one that's even worse. Sung Tongs wasn't my bag either, but at least it had a few songs I actually liked and that proved they have the talent to come up with satisfying and even intriguing material. This, however, is almost 110 minutes of self-indulgent, experimental indietronics. The folksy aspect of the music is already there, but contrary to Sung Tongs, these two releases are much more electronic, as synths, tapes and "sequential circuits delay" are the key words here. I might use fancy words here to describe the music, as it switches from noisy ambient (the title track) to all kinds of tapedeck experiments and half-upsetting collages of noise, hisses, scratches and drones that reunite analogue and digital elements. Beneath the abundant, dreadful sounds, there are always more conventional elements present, be it a piano melody or a recurring vocal melody, but it's usually done with a carelessness that's so tedious it becomes laughable. The only song that remotely sounds like something I might like is "Chocolate Girl," almost a deconstruction of a deconstruction of a pop song, which I like for about two minutes. The problem is that it goes on for another six unbearably long minutes. And so Spirit trudges on, messing around with clumsy Casio-pop, moments of cacophony, self-congratulatory dissonance, delirious mantras and extended semi-improvisations. Danse Manatee, the second album, on which Avey Tare and Panda Bear are joined by a person called "Geologist," is even worse, even though the songs are shorter. More blankets of uncomfortable noise that's supposed to be redeemed by the band's unique dynamics and keen pop sense, but yeah… whatever you wanna call songs that sound like annoying transmissions from outer space at best. The spontaneity is even more important than on Sung Tongs, and the results are quite spectacular: "Another White Singer" could've been recorded in a mental ward and "Essplode" made me realize I fuckin' hate the sound of chirping cockroaches (or machines that try to make that sound) on a record. Remember Lou Barlow's nightmarish "Poledo" on Dinosaur Jr.'s You're Living All Over Me? Like that, but much, much worse. Again, some people might actually like these albums (identify yourselves!), but after several tries, I can only conclude that their style ain't mine, their approach ain't mine and their idea of fun ain't mine. The hollowness of Spirit They're Gone Spirit They've Vanished / Danse Manatee is, simply put, debilitating; its inability to offer any kind of satisfaction is devastating.

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Sung Tongs (2004)

4

Leaf House / Who Could Win a Rabbit / The Softest Voice / Winters Love / Kids on Holiday / Sweet Road / Visiting Friends / College / We Tigers / Mouth Wooed Her / Good Lovin Outside / Whaddit I Done

Each album serves a purpose. Some have been made to come to terms with experiences and feelings, others are made especially for you (the listener), are meant to teach you something, show you something, make you dance, think or initiate you into something. People seem to suggest that Animal Collective (basically the duo of Avey Tare and Panda Bear) is out there to teach you how to use your imagination, as their music offers so little to hold on to that you're required to fill in the gaps yourself. Those who enjoyed it a lot (a large group of people, as it topped many end of year-lists) even went as far as to compare it to a kind of religious experience, or a way to live through a state of childish euphoria a second time, with "childish" not standing for immature/juvenile, but pure/direct/free from any limitations. I can't deny that they actually accomplished this feat - the album does sound like the product of boundless imagination, with its pseudo-spontaneous songs, group therapy chants and tribal ambiance, but that's exactly what bugs me about the whole shebang. There have always been artists around that propagated a kind of back to basics/nature/purity-aesthetic, which always seems a silly way of escapism to me. But hey, I never said I was indifferent to the pitfalls of our cultural discourse. Now, as to how they took it to practise: by creating a bunch of "tongs," which are "about returning to an old house, doing nothing with friends or making sounds with bones": simple and pure fun. Right. It starts off very promising, though, with the drunken stupor of "Leaf House," a kind of campfire symphony with sparse instrumentation (guitar, percussion) and - most importantly - layers of dazzlingly arranged, harmonizing vocals that even recall the Beach Boys' vocal gymnastics. It's almost a sheer cacophony, but somehow the song managed to invoke a dream-like atmosphere that constantly walks the thin line between randomness and direction. The brief slice of ecstasy "Who Could Win a Rabbit" is even better, as folk instrumentation, tape manipulation and random sounds are combined and turned into one hell of a mess that almost succeeds in taking you into another mindset. Sadly enough, this is where excitement comes to a halt, as the remainder of the album seems to have been intended as a long string of free-floating pieces that try to reconcile elements from psychedelic music (manipulations, eerie vocal melodies), folk and experimental music. The contemplative "The Softest Voice" may evoke unreal rituals and barren landscapes, the childish vocals in the second half of "Winters Love" might crack you up, just like "Kids on Holiday" (Syd Barrett goes to the jungle), but from that point onwards the album descends into a long-winded mess that just relies too much on its own idiosyncratic tricks, twist and turns (which is reminiscent of the way in which CocoRosie's self-absorption made 'em deliver not enough memorable substance). "Visiting Friends" is a twelve-minute bore, "We Tigers" suggests what a collaboration of Rhythm of the Saints-era Paul Simon with The Butthole Surfers might sound like (it's HORRIBLE), while the final few (s)(t)ongs of the album have the storage life of a fart, and God knows I really, really tried to give 'm a second chance. And a third and fourth. Sung Tongs managed to do what very few albums have been capable of before: grabbing my attention with the opening attack and gradually raising the annoyance level to a dangerous high. Perhaps I'm flushing my indie cred down the drain with statements like this (or maybe it's just that I don't have the imagination that's required to absorb this album and help me create my own little universe of purity and happiness), but boy, Sung Tongs isn't a very good album, or is it?

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