For over fifteen years David Portner (aka Avey Tare), Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear), Josh Dibb (aka Deakin) and Brian Weitz (aka Geologist) have released thought provoking and era-defining music as Animal Collective, as well as via their solo projects. As an ever-experimental fixture within the New York and Baltimore music and art scenes, the band has continued to experiment with instruments, sounds, genres and costumes. Its albums and live shows are filled with joyously hyperactive sounds ranging from unconventional psych-rock to nuanced, instrument-laden dance music.
Known for its lengthy, meandering approach to song structure, Animal Collective has approached its new tunes differently — making them intentionally shorter, striped down and more simplified. This is the band’s take on traditional techno or punk with — as Weitz says — “an Animal Collective filter over it.”
Congrats on your new album. Your last record, Centipede Hz, was released almost four years ago. What have you been up to?
We toured for a lot of it — for a year and a half after that record came out. Then we took a bit of a break during 2014 and midway through that year we started talking about making and brainstorming Painting With. We started songwriting on Jan 1, 2015, spent eight months working on it and now we’re rehearsing to play it live.
Is there a point during the making of an album that you feel particularly creatively inspired?
It’s interesting because we all live in different places now, so we have to accept that there’s a timeline. We all have to agree on new details like when we have free time amongst our children’s school calendars! You can feel really good about the writing, but then you have the fear that if might not translate in the studio. I think, for me, it’s when we get to the studio and get through the first song. You sort of feel like you know how the rest of the record is going to sound from that point on, and then you can provide more energy.
What ideas drive Painting With?
We used the first Ramones record as a sort of touch stone in our early conversations, in terms of creating a record that’s a collection of short, energetic songs from start to finish. In that regard, it’s the very opposite to what a lot of our other records are like. Many of our earlier songs are very ambient without beat or rhythm. And while I don’t think we could really be a punk band even if we tried, we decided we’d make our version of a pop punk record.
That’s cool. You recorded it at the legendary EastWest Studios in Hollywood where the Beach Boys recorded a lot of their music. In the recent film about Brian Wilson, you really get the sense of how magical that space is. Have you seen that film?
It was sort of a coincidence, but yeah I did see it — actually — the day before we went into the studio. It just happened to be on and I saw it with my wife. And you know, a lot of that movie takes place in that room, it was filmed in there.
Was the sound in there really incredible?
Yeah, when we were in there, everything sounded amazing, really rich and warm. Like just playing acoustic instruments, the piano, the vocals, everything sounded great, especially in the sound chambers. We came away with a really big appreciation of analogue sound and how it was an art form for artists in the 40s, 50s and 60s.
It’s typically so different making records now.
EastWest Studios has made its own software of plugins so essentially, if you want it to sound like you recorded it in the echo chamber, you can buy the plug-in and do it in Pro Tools. We used the real thing and while we feel it’s much better, we took a test to see if we could tell the real thing from the software version and there was really no difference. We basically all failed that test.
Ha. Technology! Speaking of technology, the film clip for Floridada is very technical in an early techno-graphic, mash-up kind of way. Who did you work with on it?
The video is made by PFFR, a production group who did an anime thing we really liked called Xavier Renegade Angel. We’ve been wanting to work with them for years.
The record cover is great too, who did that?
The record cover is by a friend of mine, Brian Mcgraw from Gang Gang Dance. He’s a great digital artist.
You guys have been such a big part of the New York music scene for so many years. How have you noticed your audience change?
I guess I’ll see more at the tour. I’m not sure if we’re a band that people grow old with. When we go on tour, the kids all look really young and their favorite records are the last couple. That said, I’m not on social media: I’m not on Instagram, I don’t use Facebook or Twitter. I don’t interact with our fans much except on tour. There’s still some people who’ve been coming to the shows for ten years so that’s great. There could be more, maybe they just stand in the back!
Painting With is out Friday February 19 through Domino.
Credits
Text Briony Wright