Animal Collective
Issue #33
Strawberry Jam (Domino)
By Claire Evans
Published: September 1st, 2007 | 12:00am
Surprise! The new Animal Collective record, Strawberry Jam, sounds like human beings recorded it. Gone are the mystic manatee chants and the ethereal guitar warbles that always characterized the ever-morphing quartet’s sound. Absent, too, are those high-pitched, delay-laced vocals that made every Animal Collective jam sound like a psychedelic campfire sing-along. Of course, there’s still some heavy stoner fuzz between us and them, but at least we can understand what the hell they’re talking about now (incidentally, if you’re wondering: Al Green, dinosaur bones, and some guy called Derek).
A slight downside, however, is that all this new clarity does a number on Animal Collective’s long-standing mystique. It’s as though the “magic” knob got turned down three cranks, and behind the new-utopian shamanist spirit curtain is just a bunch of guys noodling around with loop pedals. Although it’s a lot easier to source the Animal Collective sound now — even a cursory spin of Panda Bear’s recent Beach Boys-inspired solo album, Person Pitch, irrefutably proves which member of the gang is responsible for the group’s famously giddy arrangements and swooping, stratospheric vocals — Strawberry Jam’s blippy calypso slammers and whooping call-and-response choruses still don’t disappoint, especially if you’re interested in meeting the human side of these critters.
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