Up in Flames is a transmission from that universe, an effervescent psychedelic portal to a reality so gorgeous and transformative that you can only access it through a recording.
In some alternative universe, the summer of love never stopped, the spiritual energy was so overwhelming that it ended the Vietnam War and prevented 9/11, and the music kept growing and evolving with every passing technology and every creative breakthrough. Here was an album that non-fans could embrace and that anyone could get pleasantly lost in, only to wander out of its magical forests in awe of what Animal Collective had done and wonder what they would do next. The Animals’ sonic environment was harsher than that of the Foxes, mixing ghostly technostalgia with machinic malfunction and uncanny loops, overlaid with those wonderful harmonies and yearning solo vocals.Īvey Tare and Panda Bear had given us many of these elements before, but never in such a broadly appealing package. Here was a track that showed a more adventurous approach to harmony singing than the recently-lauded work of Fleet Foxes. Particular love was thrown at “My Girls”, and rightly so - a lot of love had clearly gone into it. The album, named after a favorite concert venue, was their most well-received to date, garnering “album of the year” plaudits before January had even got underway. As the prolific Animal Collective prepare to leave 2009 with the release of a new collection of songs, the hotly anticipated Fall Be Kind EP, it’s appropriate to remember how they entered the year with the release of Merriweather Post Pavilion.
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