The place: New York City. The date: January 2001. In the financial district, the Twin Towers stand tall. Somewhere in town, a band of young hopefuls calling themselves The Strokes are preparing to release their debut EP “The Modern Age”. But tonight, your Uncut correspondent is at the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan, watching a bill of local underground up-and-comers. Later, the Moldy Peaches will reduce the crowd to hysterics with their wry hipster folk. But first up is a duo going by the name of Avey Tare and Panda Bear. The pair dart around the floor, triggering electronics, bashing away at percussion and singing in strange, otherworldly cries. It’s a captivating performance, teeming with ideas. But right now, at least, it feels way out of step with the zeitgeist: a glimpse of something strange going on way out at the margins.
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What a difference eight years makes. As 2009 dawns, Avey Tare and Panda Bear – real names Dave Portner and Noah Lennox – and their friend Brian Weitz, aka Geologist, are most talked-about band in indie rock. This is thanks to their eighth album under the name Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion – 12 tracks of bright neo-psychedelia threading together dub and African rhythms, soaring Beach Boys harmonies and shimmering rave, housed in a bright leaf-covered sleeve drawing employing the Japanese psychologist Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s concept of illusory motion. The album debuts at No 13 on the Billboard 200 a couple of places below Mariah Carey, which is unusual enough. But perhaps even more surprising is that its momentum seems to build and build throughout the year. There are late-night TV appearances, rapturously received performances at Glastonbury, Sonar and Lollapalooza, and critical acclaim from all quarters – including from Uncut, whose critics vote Merriweather… the best album of 2009.
Did Animal Collective change to get here? Undoubtedly, but it was an evolution, rather than a full-on metamorphosis. What’s striking is that the wider world, it seemed, had now tuned into their wavelength. The preceding years of the noughties had seen the rise of ‘landfill indie’ – a string of bands taking the formula set down by The Strokes and diluting it into something increasingly tired and generic. It had also seen the explosion of peer-to-peer filesharing and the rise of MP3 blogs, breeding a new generation of open-minded and omnivorous listeners. This was the landscape that “Brother Sport” dropped into when it leaked online in November 2008. A euphoric swirl of technicolour electronics, carnival drums and vocal harmonies that tumbled over one another like a troupe of circus gymnasts, it felt both more accessible than anything they’d done before, and crammed with possibilities: a yellow brick road leading somewhere new.
If Merriweather… felt surprising on its release, it still has the capacity to surprise 15 years on. The band had been workshopping its songs live for over a year when they entered Mississippi’s Sweet Tea studio in early 2008, further refining an electronic, sample-based sound that Lennox had debuted on his 2007 solo album as Panda Bear, Person Pitch. The album still sounds distinctive, occupying as it does a strange and vivid soundworld. Much of it has a sharp, shimmering quality – listen to a song like the opening ticker-tape explosion “In The Flowers” and it’s all up in the higher registers. But “Lion In A Coma” and “Guys Eyes” come with a low-end thump that, played on a good system, hit you right in the chest – a quality enhanced by the album’s co-producer Ben Allen, an Atlanta recording engineer who had honed his craft on records by Notorious BIG and Cee-Lo Green.
The other thing that strikes you about Merriweather… is the warmth of sentiment running through it. Lennox really finds his voice here – a clear and plaintive cry, which he multitracks into harmonies recalling The Beach Boys at their most wistful and reflective. He and Portner also come with songs that, either by accident or design, seamed to speak to the current generational moment. Merriweather… landed amid an unfolding global financial crisis that saw millennials facing a bleak future of limited job prospects and withering opportunities. In this context, the carefree romance of “Summertime Clothes” or Lennox’s “My Girls” – a rejection of material wealth and social status that longed only for “four walls and adobe slats for my girls” – felt like a balm.
Like so many surprise hits from the indie underground, Merriweather Post Pavilion made Animal Collective reluctant stars. It brought a lot of new listeners into the tent, not all of whom ultimately vibed with the group’s more bristly, experimental qualities. Over releases like 2010’s “visual album” ODDSAC and 2012’s Centipede HZ – both made with returning member Josh Dibb, aka Deakin, back in the fold – they got more awkward and feral again, gradually retreating to a more comfortable spot on the margins. But the success of Merriweather… left a mark. Its breadth of influence and adventurous sonic signature changed the culture, opening a portal through which a wider cohort of adventurous experimental groups – the likes of Deerhunter and Tuneyards, Dirty Projectors and Gang Gang Dance – would scurry into the mainstream. And it changed indie rock forever, into something wilder, braver, weirder. Fifteen years on, the reverberations are still being felt.
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