Animal Collective - Sung Tungs
(Fat Cat)
Having omitted to get my hands (paws?) on any previous Animal Collective or related release, I visited the Fat Cat website for a touch of guidance before trying out the band's latest effort. Now, I do not expect dignified independence from a band's own label, but I was not prepared for this staggering slice of lazy, haphazard hyperbole:
As far as peers and influences go, Animal Collective's sprawl could also be located alongside fellow American contemporaries such as Black Dice, Lightning Bolt or Jewelled Antler Collective; the digital texturings of the Mego label; the freak-outs of '90s west coast isolationists like Caroliner and Sun City Girls; the minimalist post-techno of Kompakt; or back to '70's European commune-music utopians like Amon Duul, Harvester, Can, and similar folk-psychedelic explorers.
Wow, I thought. Any band that could live up to that description would, in a matter of seconds, necessarily be elevated to the status of greatest band of all time. So, engulfed in an anticipation not witnessed since, well since the beginning of the last episode of Sex In the City, Sung Tongs was dropped in to the CD drawer and the play button depressed.
Of course, the music depressed too. How could it not? The Fat Cat press writer(s) need(s) to take a stress pill. While this is an appealing record for the most part, it is let down immeasurably by its centrepiece and undisputed lowlight, the 12 minute "Visiting Friends," its awkwardness only emphasized by the appearance before and after it of two sixty second tracks, each of which contains far more ideas and is infinitely preferable.
As far as peers and influences go, here's the Preest guide—I'm reminded a lot of The Olivia Tremor Control's Dusk at Cubist Castle, The OTC being a band who never quite lived up to the magic promised by the name. But Black Dice? I am aware the bands are friends, but I do not hear similarities. Lightning Bolt? Not in a million. Jewelled Antler? Far too tuneful. Mego? Sung Tongs is about as far removed from Seven Tons For Free as you could possibly imagine. Sun City Girls? Please.... "freak-outs?" Kompakt? The 12 tracks on Sung Tongs are pretty tunes which happen to use electronics as support, not as foundation. Amon Duul, Harvester, Can? It is hardly worth explaining...
I will summarize in a couple of sentences. 11 tracks ("Visiting Friends" excepted) flowing speedily by in a whirl of constantly shifting phrases and exquisite voice-as-instrument whooping passages, this is a far more recognizable and less experimental set than the above press release would suggest—some tunes ("Winters Love," "Leaf House") have been running around my head for a few days now. If you like Dusk at Cubist Castle, buy this. But don't believe (all) the hype.
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