merriweather post pavillion

Animal Collective found a new sound and a new audience with the minimalistic electronic miasma of this symphonic psychedelic swoon.  The group had formed in Baltimore, Maryland after childhood friends Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Deakin (Josh Dibb), and Geologist (Brian Weitz) began recording together after putting out albums in various incarnations (which have since been rereleased under the name Animal Collective).  After releasing two albums with all four members ('Feels' and 'Strawberry Jam'), Deakin took a break from the band.  In between those two albums, Panda Bear released his acclaimed solo album 'Person Pitch'.  At the same time, they made a move to British independent Domino Records.  

'Merriweather Post Pavillion' was recorded at Sweet Tea Recording Studio in Oxford, Mississippi with Avey Tare on vocals, electronics, samples, keys, guitar, and percussion; Panda Bear on vocals, samples, electronics, and percussion; and Geologist on electronics and samples.  Ben Allen handled engineering and mixing.  It takes its title from the name of the outdoor concert venue in  Columbia, Maryland.   The album cover art features an optical illusion, where the image appears to move.  Due to its more accessible sound,  'Merriweather Post Pavillion' became their biggest success, going to eighty-six in Spain, sixty-three in Australia,fifty-eight in the Netherlands, forty-six in France, thirty-seven in Sweden, thirty-one in Belgium, twenty-six in the UK, twenty-five in Canada, twenty-one in Norway, thirteen on the US Billboard 200, and number two on the US independent album chart.   

Geologist: "It's hard for us to judge accessible or not but everybody seems to have a different opinion on all of our records. I feel like you get one opinion and then you get the complete opposite, y'know. Like we thought 'Strawberry Jam' was difficult and abrasive but people were like 'Oh, it's like the most poppy thing you guys have done and we're really shocked and loving it.' And it was the same with this one, we weren't certain. There were times when we thought it was maybe a bit too weird. We realise it's very melodic and it's the most melodious thing we've done in the terms of all of our parts together in a while but some people are now saying our vocals are clear and up front and other people are saying the vocals are kind of washed out and tucked in, so you know, it's kinda hard to say what the right view point is or what's right or wrong."

Avey Tare: "One thing we talked about was definitely trying to use a lot more acoustic sounds and samples for source material because especially for 'Strawberry Jam' the sound was a lot more crispy, or sharp which wanted it to be. And we hadn't done anything in a while that utilized a lot of acoustic sounds and field recordings and we wanted it to be a bit more natural and environmental than  'Strawberry Jam' was. I think using samplers as opposed to using two guitars or drums live forced us to record ourselves playing those instruments. A lot of the beats are . . . we say samples but they're really Noah playing the drums most of the time and then manipulated. So we experimented a lot in our practice space just recording a lot of drum tracks or guitar tracks or Brian collecting a lot of field recordings or acoustic instruments and trying to record that into a more symphonic kind of way of doing things. We were trying to orchestrate it...I think we're very fortunate in a way with recording. We're very conscious of how our music is produced and we pretty much are the producers and we have a hand in everything. But also the people we work with - right down to mastering and mixing - has an old school… I don't really want to say anti-internet way of approaching mastering a record but everybody is aware that our music has a lot of dynamics to it I guess. And we like to preserve that dynamic because we are primarily a live band, even though we appreciate and like to be in the studio in a way our music is created for us playing live ...  Yeah. I think it's a matter of what works with the song. When we were working on this record, we felt a little bit like the vocals on 'Strawberry Jam' were pretty high and kind of dry. For this one, we wanted to do something that was a little more blending in terms of the sounds and the vocals. But it's always a matter of what works the best. There were times when [producer] Ben [Allen] really wanted to mix the vocals a lot higher or a lot more than was comfortable for us. I think we found an equal level...it's just what sounds right."

Panda Bear:      "The balance you have to find. I certainly understand the argument, 'What's the point of writing lyrics about anything if no one can understand what you're saying?' But I've held that somehow the intention or the feeling of it comes across in the song. Also, there's a point-- like Dave was saying-- where if you mix them too high, it kind of loses the energy of the song...There are a lot of serendipitous little things that I feel mark this one out differently than the other ones. But besides that, it's kind of just another record. Working with Ben Allen-- we had never really met him before, we didn't know too much about the way he worked. We knew what he worked on and that was what drew us to him.  But the fact that we worked with him really well, and the sound was exactly the way we wanted it. The fact that the studio was really awesome and a really nice place to be for a month making music was another little thing. [That] the kind of songs that Dave and I wrote starting about two years ago would go together was kind of serendipitous. I feel like it was kind of a concentrated affair for the most part. It was one thing to the next; there wasn't a whole gap of time we were just touring or anything like that. The only thing that makes it feel really different to me is that things went really smoothly. There wasn't any big hang-up or big problem this time around."







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"My Girls"




"Bluish"




"Guys Eyes"





 'Merriweather Post Pavillion'
full album:



"In the Flowers" – 5:22
"My Girls" – 5:41
"Also Frightened" – 5:14
"Summertime Clothes" – 4:30
"Daily Routine" – 5:46
"Bluish" – 5:14
"Guys Eyes" – 4:31
"Taste" – 3:53
"Lion in a Coma" (Animal Collective, Lathozi Mpahleni Manquin Madosini) – 4:12
"No More Runnin" – 4:23
"Brother Sport" – 5:59