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Animal Collective - Summertime Clothes
a considered opinion: taken by trees - east of eden
Anytime a Western artist embraces a style of music of an origin that is decidedly foreign to them, eyebrows raise. Although genre-bending is arguably more commonplace now than it was in the days when George Harrison confounded his mainstream audience by hanging out with Ravi Shankar and fiddling about with a sitar, there is still a certain stigma attached to artists who dip their toes into “exotic” musical waters. Many assume, often rightly so, that such efforts to incorporate the traditional forms of music of other cultures into a pop musician’s oeuvre amount to nothing more than cultural tourism. In choosing to draw heavily from traditional Pakistani music in her latest release under the Taken By Trees moniker, East of Eden, Victoria Bergsman is fighting an uphill battle from the start.
Having made the record in Pakistan with local musicians, Bergsman can hardly be faulted for going about this album half-heartedly. If her goal was to combine traditional Pakistani music with the understated, subdued folk-pop she plied on her 2007 debut Open Field, then she was certainly successful. The local players she enlisted for the session seem not just competent at playing their nation’s traditional style, but exceedingly proficient, particularly in the rolling hand percussion on “Day By Day”, one of the better songs here. The problem with East of Eden, then, lies not in a disingenuous approach to adopting this “foreign” music, but in Bergsman’s performance. While her reserved, quiet vocal style works (to varying degrees of success) within the confines of what could be considered her style up until this album, it falls flat when presented in this new context. “Wapas Karna”, a track in the second half of the album, features a female Pakistani singer, and no discernible contribution from Bergsman. Admittedly, she may have played some instrument on the song or controlled the song’s development, but the piece sounds so decidedly Pakistani that she may as well have contributed nothing. The vocals on “Wapas Karna” recall traditional Pakistani singing (think warbling… lots and lots of warbling), and have an impassioned, almost strained quality to them; this singer sounds like she is pushing herself. While I don’t like “Wapas Karna” and wonder why it was included at all – if Bergsman has no discernible presence, what makes it a Taken By Trees song? – the vocal performance here stands in stark contrast to Bergsman’s style. As I said earlier, whenever a Western pop musician begins to play around with music from cultures drastically different from their own (especially when they do so over the course of an entire album), their sincerity is called into question – what reason do we have to believe that this is not just some fleeting infatuation with some branch of world music? In a style of music that traditionally relies on energetic vocal performances, Bergsman’s sullen delivery and limited range make her sound completely removed from the proceedings; while I admit that she was, in all likelihood, thoroughly personally invested in this album, she sounds like she simply doesn’t give a fuck.
Globetrotting recording process aside, what will no doubt garner East Of Eden the most attention in the media is Bergsman’s inclusion of a slight revision of Animal Collective’s “My Girls”, here renamed “My Boys”. While it is a rather charming version of one of the best songs released so far this year, it is dragged down, like the rest of the album, by Bergsman’s vocal performance. Part of what makes “My Girls” so good is the unabashed exuberance of the vocals, and Bergsman completely fails to capture that, once again singing in her unwavering mumble. Ultimately, “My Boys” suffers from the same problem that plagues the album as a whole: with East Of Eden, Bergsman has taken a variety of rather interesting musical ideas and styles and used them to create something that is ultimately quite boring.
Some American DOES NOT RECOMMEND Taken By Trees’ East Of Eden.
a considered opinion: animal collective - merriweather post pavilion
The first time I heard Animal Collective, I didn’t like them at all. Not one bit. It wasn’t even that I just thought they weren’t for me; I didn’t see what there was to like in their off-kilter, bonkers brand of psychedelia. However, that was a good two or three years ago, and in the time since I’ve been exposed to all manner of weird, left-field music. Somehow, though, I have still managed not to be ensnared by Animal Collective. Even when I heard a couple songs on Strawberry Jam, which landed in more year-end best-of lists than I care to count, songs that I thought were actually quite good, I still didn’t get into the band. My experience with Animal Collective thus far has been one of circling from a distance, eyeing warily.
I probably wouldn’t have even considered putting a review together were it not for “My Girls”, the album’s second track and the song that I have been playing incessantly and at ludicrous volumes for the better part of a week. The beat was what pulled me in at first: after a slow buildup of shimmering synths and reverb-drenched vocals, on comes a giddy, butt-shaking explosion of a chorus, punctuated with WOOs that seem to hammer home the point that this chorus is awesome, in every sense of the word, and the only appropriate response (other than the aforementioned butt-shaking) is to shout at the top of your lungs. Woo, indeed.
After the first few listens and one-man bedroom dance parties, though, it was the lyrics that kept me coming back for more. This is a song about a man yearning for simplicity and security for his family, summed up perfectly in the chorus:
“I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status. I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls.”
These simple, grounded sentiments contrast starkly with the celestial synth melodies running throughout the song, as if to imply that, simple those these desires may be, they are the stuff of dreams. This is a sentiment that is echoed throughout the album; the majority of the album is written from the perspective of a man who is both overjoyed by the fact that he has a family, but also deeply concerned about the future and what it may hold for them. “Daily Routine” is exactly what it sounds like: a description of the considerably mundane process of taking care of small children. The song overcomes the apparent limitations of the banal subject matter due to the genuine feeling of sincerity that comes along with it; this sounds like a process that, while it may seem unexciting to the casual observer, has deep importance to the writer. The instrumentation is also superb, with scattershot electric organ melodies thrown on top of a bouncing beat and warped, warbled vocals. “Also Frightened” addresses another daily occurrence in raising children: the uncertainty of the future and the impact of whatever it holds may have on children as they grow older:
“Influences threaten
Maybe I should let them
Maybe we should let them
And I have a question:
Are you also frightened?”
This last line is repeated multiple times, hammering home the sense of fear that comes with parenthood.
Any and all reservations I once held about this band are now completely gone. This record is absolutely and undeniably fantastic. The lyrical themes expressed throughout are sincere and coherent from start to finish, and are wrapped in infectious melodies, bright, shimmering synth lines and throbbing beats. Even during the album’s heaviest moments, when the lyrics address feelings of deep fear and uncertainty, there is a sense of playfulness about it all that keeps it from feeling doom-laden. The opening track “In The Flowers” acts as a fitting introduction to the album:
“Feeling envy for the kid who danced in spite of anything
And we’re out in the flowers and feeling better.
… Then we could be dancing and you’d smile and say I like this song.”
Past the expressions of fear and doubt, above and beyond the depth and quality of the lyrics, more important than the subtlety of the production is the fact that these songs are here to be liked. And I do. A lot. Buy this album now.
Some American RECOMMENDS Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion.
