Rather than listening out for the first cuckoo you can herald the arrival of spring
with the new Animal Collective EP, Water Curses.
Containing 4 brand new tracks, Water Curses is the first Animal Collective release
since last year's tour de force Strawberry Jam.
Water Curses sees the band's capacity for re-imaging their constituent parts into
ever more interesting and saturated shapes go up by a giddy notch. All four tracks
have a more stripped down feel than their recent work, opener Water Curses takes an
unexpected rhythm and throws it up, down and sideways to produce the sound of a
smile. A technique that Animal Collective are now in a position to call their own.
Street Flash is nearly seven minutes of spaced out hollers, electronics and
lullabies that luxuriate in a chord sequence running through a delay that sounds
like it's made of honey. Threatening to explode but laying back on itself instead
the track is like a particularly lucid dream.
Cobwebs is equally languid. Weaving itself around a vocal that sounds like it's
imagining some new kind of space church for Al Green to conduct weddings until it
slowly fades away into a sticky ether. The EP's final track takes the celestial feel
into even more blissed-out states. Seal Eyeing is the moment you realize watching
vapor trails melt into the sky is not only the most constructive thing you can do,
but the only real option that's left.
1. Water Curses
2. Street Flash
3. Cobwebs
4. Seal Eyeing
All tracks find Animal Collective exploring strange new waters
All tracks recorded with Scott Colburn at Wavelab Studio (Tucson, AZ), except Seal
Eyeing by Nicolas Vernhes
All mixed with Nicolas Vernhes at Rare Book Room (Brooklyn, NY)
