all up in that ark
I feel a special amount of love and pride regarding Animal Collective. They've seen increasingly generous amounts of praise heaped on them from everywhere from the often slam-happy Pitchfork to the NY Times to NPR to Rolling Stone... and on and on. The truth is, their last album, Sung Tongs was utterly brilliant, but a might too brilliant for my simple tastes in places, and was a full-on temporal lobe engaging aural exercise. Their new LP, Feels (out on Fat Cat Records), takes the same energy, originality and distinctive touch and paints a 9-song masterpiece with it that is a much more approachable listen from start to finish.
But here's the rub: I went to high school with these guys. At least three out of four of the band (I honestly don't remember if Noah Lennox went to our school or not, but I don't remember 80% of the people there at this point) were there, and Josh Dibb was my year. Our senior yearbook pages were facing each other (his was clearly the best one in our graduating class, mine was pretty effing lame), and I remember thinking then he was on his way to somewhere good. The rest of the band too - it was easy to image them evolving into what they've now become, watching them perform the Cars Just What I Needed at the school open mic nights (complete with Moog!). It's just nice to know the right people make it to the right places from time to time. Interestingly, Barr also graduated in the same class as Brian and Dave.
You can download most of their previous albums (and the new one when its available) on [iTunes], or purchase the new CD from [Amazon or Insound] when it releases on October 25th. Highly recommended, and keep up the superb work, lads.