Animal Collective takeover: Stir it Up
Animal Collective's giddily vibrant and colorful new pop record Painting With (the band's 10th LP!) dropped last week, and to celebrate, we've asked the guys to take over the site for the day. So stick around to hang with Avey Tare, Panda Bear, and Geologist all day, and stay up on their posts throughout the day right here.
When I was in fifth grade I accompanied my cousins on a trip to ocean city Maryland for a speech competition that one of them was participating in. The first night after we arrived we were set free on the boardwalk and I consumed more than my share of fried seafood, salt water taffy, cotton candy, caramel popcorn etc. it was my one of my first "tastes" of childhood freedom. A right of passage into junior high. Unfortunately I woke at 4 am and began what would be a day of continuous vomiting. I never saw my cousin deliver his speech and I don't remember much more from the trip. But on the ride back to Baltimore my cousin forced my aunt and uncle to play his tape of Natty Dread by Bob Marley over and over again. What I do remember now very clearly is the sound of that voice and that music infiltrating my brain and my heart as I lay there sick on the back seat. It's a sound I've never grown tired of and still explore to this day. Needless to say I love Bob Marley and I love dub reggae. Here is a clip of the Wailers playing stir it up. Check out how smooth they come across. It seems so effortless. The rhythm shifts slightly out and back like its pushed by a breeze. Those moog swells are like pink dusk coloring a thin beach tide. Cliched as that sounds written, it's a sound I can take in any mood at any time of the day. — Avey Tare of Animal Collective