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He opened up a package of strawberry jam and looked at it and said that the way that it looked was how he wanted the record to sound - simultaneously synthetic, futuristic but from an organic natural place. -Josh Dibb (Deakin) on Strawberry Jam's title and art |
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JamBase: Animal Collective is endlessly compared to the Beach Boys, Brian Eno and other '60s & '70s rock pioneers. That's a lot of weight to throw on any band. What's the group's reaction to these touchstones? Do you find the comparisons accurate? Who do you guys think you sound like?
 Animal Collective |
Josh Dibb: Honestly, we have never really talked about what we make in terms like that. It has always been really amusing to hear what other people think we sound like, or to hear someone say how obvious it is that we are inspired by the Beach Boys, for instance. We have never really thought that way. I guess that we never think about trying to do something in sonic terms that someone else has done already. That is not to say that any of us have the conceit to believe that we are creating something completely original, but to us the inspiration of others has always been more about the process and the intention more than the sound itself. I think the sound of a group comes from how they live their lives and what they surround themselves with. If what they are doing is based wholly on trying to sound like something else the result is often, to me, something that doesn't feel as pure or alive. I just hope that to others we sound like a group of people that were very much themselves and seemed like they were always trying to have fun.
One of the pleasures as a listener with Animal Collective is your sense of never ending sonic mischievousness. One senses a restless itch when it comes to making unique or compelling noises not just music proper. Am I hearing this right? What's the atmosphere in the studio when you're all there creating these sounds?
That is very true. We each get bored pretty easily by repetition of ideas or forms. So, to some degree, we are always trying something new. We never felt comfortable with idea of getting stuck in any particular niche or pattern just for the sake of it or because it is easy. The studio though is usually less of a time for experimentation as much as it is a time for perfecting things. By the time we get to the studio we have usually written and arranged the songs pretty completely and are really just looking for the best way to capture what we already know that we want.
To my ears, Animal Collective makes pop music [read: Todd Rundgren or
Squeeze not Britney or Beyonce]. Mutant, sometimes delightfully wrong pop music but pop just the same. Whatcha think of them apples?
We certainly think of it that way. I don't think people have always seen it that way, especially on some of our earlier albums like Danse Manatee. To us, all of our music has always been rooted in our mutual love and appreciation for melody and structure, even if it has been in a way that has been difficult for a lot of people to hear.
Increasingly in much independent rock, vocals are an afterthought or a barely tolerable affectation. By contrast, vocals seem more and more important in Animal Collective. There's some trippy layers to the singing on Strawberry Jam. What's the band's thinking on vocals? Is there a goal in mind? How much thought and planning go into them, especially these days?
Vocals have always been really important but I guess they have been moving to the front a lot on the last two records or so. I think that for the guys that write the lyrics right now the voice and its many textures have become even more key. We have always seen the voice as kind of the greatest instrument that one can use. The way to use it though has shifted and I think for the sake of trying new things and not "getting bored" like I talked about before. It was cool this time around to really single the voice out and see what it could do - if it really took up a separate place in the mix as opposed to some of the other records, where it has been a lot about blending them into the textures of everything else. We also grew really attached to the live energy of these songs in the touring that led up to the recording and I think that we all felt that we wanted to really hold on to a lot of that live energy through keeping the vocals as minimal as possible in terms of layering. So, I think that really pushed Dave and Noah to work their voices really hard and get them as specific as possible without effects or layering.
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