You wait ages for a new Animal Collective release… and then two come along at once. Well, sort of. After Transverse Temporal Gyrus – more collages than songs in the traditional sense – found its way into the world on Record Store Day, the Baltimore four-piece have surprise sprung a new single this week. You can listen to it here.
Consisting of two tracks, ‘Honeycomb’ and ‘Gotham’, it’s the first proper song-based material we’ve heard from Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist since 2009’s much-loved Merriweather Post Pavilion. In the interim period we’ve been battered senseless by wave after wave of insipid chillwave types, who took the MPP template, spliced it with a bit of Ariel Pink and sent it whining into the affections of audiences worldwide. While it’s hardly fair to blame Animal Collective, were it not for their last album, the last three years’ worth of music might well have sounded very different indeed.
With that in mind, it’s good to hear that these two tracks have changed tack sonically from the sepia synth-pop of MPP. ‘Honeycomb’ is an upbeat and manic number not too far from the Strawberry Jam school of yelps, setting Tare’s chatter to a tesselated backdrop of synth blurts and kitchen sink percussion. ‘Gotham’ is a slower, more guitar-driven number, again finding Tare taking vocal centre stage. They’re some way from the group’s best material, but as usual for Animal Collective, they’re promising signs that the next album will offer something different again. The single is available digitally from here as of today, and the 7" will be released through Domino on the 26th June – click here to pre-order.
