Animal Crap Box

Overwhelmed with excitement was I to learn that Quality New Music favorite Animal Collective would be releasing a record compilation of live recordings from early in their career. Thankful we are to be able to peer back into the career of such a prolific artist especially when it provides such a stunning contrast from the poppy electronic beats AC presented us in their most recent outing, Merriweather Post Pavilion. Arguable pioneers, if not founders in the genre of freak folk it would have seemed fair to get giddy like a school girl in preparations for what should be hours of moans, screams, droning instrumentals, and strategic silence.

Sadly, this is not quite the case. The vinyl started off rather nicely with a glistening of prickly guitar fuzz and scattered drum beats only to have the experience virtually shattered by the introduction of lyrics just shy of the two minute mark! Sure what little lyrics the first song "Jimmy Raven" are completely buried under the moans of the guitar and the incoherent drum hits peppered about seemingly randomly, but that can't be quite enough for any one truly wishing to experience the true spirit of the genre. In fact never at one point does the compilation does a track divert into a 20 minute plus cloud of noise, nor is any single track recorded onto the vinyl backwards.

Over the career of this band we have come to expect certain things. One of which is for their music to be confused for nonsense or broken pieces of machinery. Listening to it is ever to easy to decipher lyrics, pick up on beats, and even identify instruments being used. I did not scalp a copy of this compilation off Ebay for $700 so my parents could think i was going through another musical phase, i purchased this to act as a piece of pretension, a curio, something that when showed to visitors to my home they will question as to why I was so inclined to drop the cash on some vinyl that sounded a tad warped, if not melted. Silly are the minds of such people to not be able to truly appreciate such compilations on such a high level as I. To say the least AC did manage to make the two tracks from the more decipherable Sung Tungs into the sort of hazy non-melodic chants that we have come to expect from the band.