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The Animal Collective Challenge

march 12 - may 17






Spirit They've Gone, Spirit They've Vanished

July 31, 2000
Recorded May - September 1999

Neo Psychedelia, Experimental
Noise, Folktronica, Progressive Pop, Art Pop

march 12 - march 16

Definitive to me in a way that I did not forsee when I started this challenge. Trying to contextualize past memory with this album into the future I can have with this album. 2017 reccomendation and fascination with this album, passive appreciation. I remember biking to Bob evans at 7 in the morning to have a novelty breakfast at its opening in july of 2020. I remember biking to it right before the rain fell during the summer in 2021 and being reminded of its beauty

I love it. I love its noisy integrations and I love its quaintness. it is trying to be so grandiose while feeling so juvenile (positive connotation). I spent the five day span trying to decide if this was a better album for warm sunny spring days or for cooler springtime evenings, and I really could not decide. The final 3 minute beat switch (?) of Chocolate Girl may very well be the sonic peak of their career. Alvin Row felt somewhat indulgent on my first relisten, but by my last I was completely entranced. I think the two instrumental numbers at the end (not including untitled, because I love it) are a little but lackluster compared to the rest of the sprawling pop songs on this album, but thats okay. Maybe their best. Frankly.

Words slip by when I'm silent, I have to let so many people down
Then the bell from the ice cream man comes to save the day

Track Ranking:

  1. Chocolate Girl
  2. Alvin Row
  3. April and the Phantom
  4. Penny Dreadfuls
  5. Spirit They've Vanished
  6. Bat You'll Fly
  7. La Rapet
  8. Untitled
  9. Someday I'll Grow to be as Tall as a Giant
  10. Everybody Whistling

Danse Manatee

June 30, 2001
Recorded January - March 2001

Experimental, Neo-Psychedelia
Noise, Electroacoustic, Post-Rock, Psychedelic Folk, Ambient Pop

march 17 - march 21

I will not lie, I found myself falling slightly behind with this album. I got sidetracked by audiobooks and March Madness AM radio broadcasts. My second listen, much more formative and meaningful to me than my first, took place over the course of two evenings, past 2am, and I feel like the solitude of writing and being in the glow of my computer screen made these songs come alive. The album feels like an atmospheric, almost aquatic flow. Every sensible form and pop songwriting technique (except essplode, of course) is almost completely absent from this album. It is the hollowed out remains of where a pop album once stood, and one must stare it blank in the face and try to understand the language it is speaking. The long flowing post rock inspired tracks are the higlights, but throwing round the ball always catches my ear for some reason. Ranking the tracks is going to be very difficult because it feels explicitly like a work to be enjoyed in one swift go. Please love this album, it deserves your love.

Track Ranking:

  1. Essplode
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Hollinndagain

June 28, 2002
Recorded February 9, 2001 - June 3, 2001

Neo-Psychedelia, Noise
Electroacoustic, Freak Folk, Experimental Rock, Drone, Free Folk

march 22 - march 26

Hollinndagain is expansive. It feels like the true imagined potential of Danse Manatee. The lovechild of where they went and where they would go (Campfire songs, I’m looking at you). My listens mostly accompanied homework late into the night, unable to focus but trying to, feeling jaded by academics while never wanting to leave this campus. The spirit of innocence harnessed throughout their catalog, the gnawing sense of wanting to stay but forced to leave, feels sonically realized here, and accompanies my life well. The little moments of feedback, the sprawling folk passages, the screamed and unorthodox vocal sounds. It reminds me a lot of early Pink Floyd, something like “Ummagumma”, live songs are sprawling and unpredictable, album cuts are experimental and fun.

Track Ranking:

  1. I See You Pan
  2. Pride in Flight
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Campfire Songs

March 1, 2003
Recorded November 2001 - January 2002

Free Folk, Psychedelic Folk
Naure Recordings, Ambient, Avant-Folk, Drone

march 27 - march 31

So.... um.... this is awkward. I cannot listen to this album because of lent. It is only avalible at the Bowling Green Closed Stacks, and I do not have the kind of money to spend $10 on a CD. I have heard this album like 5 times, so I am not exactly missing out, and I will revisit it in 3 weeks after lent concludes, but for now the rankings are just my memory. This was my favorite animal collective album in bursts over the last 3 years.

Track Ranking:

  1. Doggy
  2. Queen in My Pictures
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Ark

June 17, 2003
Recorded 2002

Neo-Psychedelia, Experimental
Tribal Ambient, Drone, Psychedelic Folk, Electroacoustic, Freak Folk, Free Folk,

april 1 - april 5

My freaks. My musical freaks. They strike again. This does not peel back or calm down the energies found on the previous two records, but it certainly has some level of intentionality that the other records lack. Creates an atmosphere of primitivism that is genuinely very appealing, and accompanies the spring temperatures and winds well. Lyrically? I cannot make them out, so I have no stance. I know that a few albums from now they will be able to create a concise and, by the standards set here, conventional piece of work, but I know that when I'm laying in the breeze listening to Centipede Hz, I will miss this sound.

Track Ranking:

  1. Two Sails on a Sound
  2. Native Bell
  3. Infant Dressing Table
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Sung Tongs

May 3, 2004
Recorded September 7 - 28 2003

Freak Folk, Avant Folk
psychedelic folk, Free Folk, Neo-Psychedelia

april 6 - april 10

[in sert]

Track Ranking:

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Feels

October 18, 2005
Recorded March 2005

Neo-Psychedelia
Freak Folk, Psychedelic Pop, Ambient Pop, Psychedelic Folk

april 11 - april 15

[in sert]

Track Ranking:

  1. Banshee Beat
  2. The Purple Bottle
  3. Did You See the Words
  4. Grass
  5. Loch Raven
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Strawberry Jam

September 10, 2007
January 2007

Neo-Psychedelia, Art Pop
Psychedelic Pop, Indietronica, Noise Pop

april 16 - april 20

[in sert]

Track Ranking:

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