The core of the Animal Animal Collective are New York-based guitarist Avey Tare (real name David Portner) and drummer Panda Bear (real name Noah Lennox)" Panda Bear (Soccer Star, 1999) had already presented a bizarre program of electronic folk music, at the intersection of Nick Drake, Syd Barrett and Brian Eno.
The duo debuted with the tenderly dissonant post-psychedelic electronica of Spirit They're Gone Spirit They've Vanished (Animal, 2000). This extraterrestrial android vaudeville evokes Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev in their most anarchic ventures. It is all (deliberately) chaotic and unfocused.
Tracks: Spirit They've Vanished, April & 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.
Danse Manatee (Catsup Plate, 2001), recorded by Tare, Panda Bear, and keyboardist Brian "Geologist" Weitz, adds more pop vocals but, in general, it is less song-oriented and more abstract, evoking Bugskull and the Residents.
Tracks: A Manatee Danse, Penguin Penguin, Another White Singer, Essplode, Meet The Light Child, Runnin' The Round Ball, Bad Crumbs, The Living Toys, Throwin' The Round Ball, Ahhh Good Country, Loblakely Dress, In The Singing Box.
The double personality of Danse Manatee was resolved on Campfire Songs (Catsup Plate, 2003) in favor of the folk-pop ego. The collection is just what the title implies: acoustic campfire songs, recorded live outdoors; but the psychedelic factor is as high as ever (peacking with the closing, 11-minute De Soto De Son)
Here Comes The Indian (Paw, 2003), finally credited to the Animal Collective, is even more erratic and amoebic.
Tracks: Native Belle, Hey Light, Infant Dressing Table, Panic, Two Sails On A Sound, Slippi, Too Soon.
The Animal Collective tempered its quirkiness on Sung Tongs (Fat Cat, 2004), but losing quite a bit of its credibility on the bossanova-sounding kitsch of Leaf House, the singalong acoustic folk of Winters Love, the baroque harmonies of Who Could Win A Rabbit, and the 12-minute nostalgic fantasia Visiting Friends, in a vein that updates the Beach Boys' high-pitched multi-part harmonies to the post-rock world. Despite the percussive nightmare of We Tigers, the demented psalm of Mouth Wooed Her and the psychedelic ditties Kids on Holiday and Whaddit I Done, the album's streamlined and simplified approach almost negates everything the Animal Collective stood for.
Noah "Panda Bear" Lennox's mini-album Young Prayer (Paw, 2004) contains nine somber untitled elegies (voice, guitar, piano) for the death of his father. They are closer in format and spirit to austere church music than to folk music.
Terrestrial Tones is a project of abstract electronica by Avey Tare (David Portner) and Black Dice's Eric Copeland that debuted with Blasted (Psychopath, 2004).
The four-song EP Prospect Hummer (Fat Cat, 2005) is a collaboration between Animal Collective and Vashti Bunyan.
Jane, a collaboration between Noah "Panda Bear" Lennox and Scott Mou, released Berserker (Paw Tracks, 2005), a rather confused collection of aimless songs.
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