Experimental music is often written off by its critics as being too bizarre or inaccessible, and indeed this is frequently the case. Weirdness in the vast canon of modern art-music easily becomes self-servingly dull -- an obsessive, ironic consciousness of bands testing the limits of pop music's hulking span. What is lost in this case is a sense of sincerity, emotional clarity, or at its worst, musicality in general -- an example of art for art's sake and a betrayal of the qualities which make music listenable.
This past Monday at the Ottobar, Brooklyn-based Baltimore natives Animal Collective showed what experimental music can be at its finest, an expressive fusion of adventurous instrumental arrangements, otherworldly song structures, and an unusually affective charge of emotion.
Touring with the equally unconventional Ariel Pink through the latter days of April, the Collective has been appearing at small clubs and college venues throughout the Northeast and the Midwest.
All of the potentially effective melody in Ariel Pink's songs was overcome by an overwhelming effect-scape and an almost autistic presentation whereby lead singer Pink paced the stage, staring intently into space, and frantically howling an unintelligible stream of sounds. The result was undeniably unique, but ultimately confusing and unsatisfying.
Animal Collective's foursome subsequently took the stage and commenced an epic of noise which would contract and expand fluidly (save for one or two momentary pauses) over an hour-long set. At times the music swelled like a million cathedral bells ringing over a blurry town only to simmer into a quiet campfire of crackling percussion and gentle guitars punctuated with the cathartic and ghostly vocal work of guitarist Avey Tare (David Porter) and drummer Panda Bear (Noah Lennox).
The sheer density of sundry tones, instruments (harmonica, bird whistle, etc.), and electronic sampling wove together as an organic tapestry of sound -- a challenging but rewarding picture intended for the subconscious,
The songs themselves, as featured on the group's two LPs (including last year's haunting Sung Tongs), are at their heart rather folky and simplistic -- relying on simple hooks and progressions. The confessional and emotional spirit remains at the bottom of the intricate and entropic arrangements which borrow from the electronic movement and heavily from non-Western folk traditions. African overtones dominate the cyclical and ecstatic songs, reminiscent of a religious dance (which was performed by the band members who violently and erratically shook as they stomped around the stage). This is the music Paul Simon would have made if he had written Graceland on psychedelics with a synth-band.
To describe Animal Collective's performance in words is a somewhat futile gesture due to the fact that their music is not meant to be conceptualized rationally. Their work subscribes to the noise-rock aim of expressing beauty through chaos by tapping a sort of music that exists in the ostensible melee of nature. In a sense, the entire point of the genre is to find a transmuted form of ancient Greece's "music of the spheres." To this point, Animal Collective's performance was successful.
I found myself in a stupor, unable to pinpoint any single intelligible element, but felt like I was experiencing something holy -- a mishmash of memory and renewed emotion -- firmly believing that they were covering the universe's greatest hits. Only when the audience fails to "get it" do they ever really enjoy Animal Collective's music.
