CD Reviews

Animal Collective and Lithops
By Bernardo Rondeau

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
Hollinndagain
(Paw Tracks)
4 out of 5

Issued back in 2002 on a limited run of 300 hand-painted LPs, Hollinndagain is a patchwork document of live actions from the Animal Collective before the group even used that name. After releasing a pair of albums bursting with trebly weirdness – 2000’s Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished and the following year’s Danse Manatee (conveniently reissued as a two-fer by Fat Cat in 2003)– the trio of Panda Bear, Avey Tare and Geologist slowly morphed into their present incarnation of jangling, wildwood etherea. Set beside the spangled folk of Sung Tongs or the woozy lunar chanteys of Feels, Hollinndagain is a raw feed of random magick.

At their most placid – the opening twenty-one minutes that spans two tracks and ostensibly serves as a panorama of the whole, tattered expanse covered by the band – the Animal Collective generates a gurgling stream of crunchy refuse over which they layer soft voices and dusty Casiotone particles. The flux of time-lagged, fx-splashed frequencies recedes as an assortment of toms are beaten in rhythmic rumination. A trail of shimmering acoustic guitar wafts by as the boys’ engines begin screeching, bleeping and popping loops of trebly voltage. If this splotchy mass of playful, communal creation isn’t proof enough for ya that AC once sat under the same acid-stained umbrella as synapse-frittering noiseniks Black Dice, then the crazed “Forest Gospel” should do it. Drums crumble and crash in a frenzy as twittering analog fireflies stir up seesawing mantras that explode into screams. Honoring nature’s organic abstraction, the Animal Collective transposes the scrawled calligraphy of roots, branches and leaves into vibrant surges of human invention.

LITHOPS
Mound Magnet
(Thrill Jockey)
4 out of 5

Previously, Jan St. Werner could rely on his Lithops alter-ego as a transparent cover for research into the savage edges of digitalia (see also his no less rasping collaborations with Oval’s Markus Popp as Microstoria). All the while, as Mouse on Mars alongside Andi Thomas, St. Werner applied this extensive field-work as a means to meticulously warp techno into a coarsely vibrant new forms beyond the usually crisp chug and lustrous timbres scoring dancefloors. But as this year’s Varcharz finds MoM churning caustic currents of saturated fuzz like toxin-gargling, metal machine maniacs, the latest Lithops long-player is, for once, the less cerebral alternative.
A galaxy of creaks and crunches opens Mound Magnet as “Opposite of Windward” scurries through gushes of distorted microbes swirling like Kevin Shields’ Fender in a carbonated bath. “Real” guitars crop up on “Cephalopod” with a flanged, rubberband jangle tangling with other curled and rusted strings. “Stakes Barrier” is a clatter of clanging steel and worming bass squiggles worthy of the Aphex Twin while the lopsided strut and lumpy chug of “Peek” could have easily fallen off MoM’s mighty Niun Niggung, “Conturn” shimmers like its pouring out of a blasted, cone-melted woofer. Nothing is ever fixed or nailed down as trails of splotched color, glitch splashes, and data blobs unhinge St. Werner’s grooves at sudden intervals. Flared blips and flashes of scribbled modulation also maintain the constant flux. Recorded over three years, Mound Magnet is a steady spurt of ear-bending energy that gives side-projects a great name.