Down There lacks a “jam,” doesn’t it? That’s our problem, let’s be honest: we wouldn’t exactly be enthralled with “In the Flowers” if it weren’t for
that one part, where the squelchy, damp climate is suddenly snapped inside-out and we’re let into the strobe-light show; all sweaty masses of bodies clinging and moving together and singing deliberately-placed (if you know me, forever a lyrical cynic, you’ll be surprised to know that this is not a bad thing) lines like “Then we could be dancing / and you’d smile and say ‘I like this song’”. But then we pop in this new one and by the time “Heather in the Hospital” segues (awesomely) into “Lucky 1,” we’re expecting the thump-a-thump-a-thump and the oft-praised “heavy bass” of
Merriweather Post Pavilion and all we get is a drumbeat that barely seems to be there. Whoops, Avey Tare forgot to make us dance and hold hands!
Then, if you’re like me, you keep trying, and suddenly there it is: “Laughing Hieroglyphic,” the magnificently maladroit opening track. This here, with its clumsy beat, its bizarre synth-accordion loop; this is the first track that grew on me and also the one that sets the stage for
Down There not only because it leads it off but also because it introduces us to the new “jam”. Where my first few listens were searching for something that wasn’t there, the next few were bouncing around to the “ba-ba, ba-CLACK” of the beat and also not only revelling in Portner finally bringing back his
Strawberry Jam vocal swag but all-out singing/shouting along to it, copying his every strained shout and quaver; if this isn’t that communal feeling I so welcomed on
Merriweather, what is?
Which isn’t to say that
Down There is exactly, you know, “warm”; if anything, its excellent production (courtesy of Josh Dibb, a.k.a. Deakin) makes it sound, more than anything,
submerged (“swamp” or some variant is a word I’ve been hearing a lot, and for a good reason). This doesn’t exactly necessitate something that sounds like the reverb-heavy
Person Pitch as much as it does the squirting, murky soundscapes that Animal Collective would often place in between the “songs”. Here, they
are the songs: the peculiarly catchy “Oliver Twist” might not be such if it weren’t for those squishy sound effects and distinctly “watery” vocal effects that give the song and its introspective lyrics a tone far darker and more reflective than most other things we’ve heard from both Portner and his whole Collective (although the majority of the
Water Curses EP isn’t too far off).
Surprisingly enough, this sort of musical obscurantism actually makes the hooks and
especially the lyrics (or at least the way he’s saying them; I have no idea what “Cemeteries” is quietly declaring but I know that it’s
touching) retain more lasting power--ever since “Laughing Hieroglyphic” hit me, it hasn’t lost anything, whereas I find myself needing to take a break from “My Girls” from time to time (though that isn’t to say one song is better than the other). There are also songs that are
all obscurities, like “Glass Bottom Boat,” which is those same “mid-song” soundscapes splayed out all over Animal Collective’s past releases only as its own track; it immerses us even deeper into the swamp and it works wonderfully. I could take it further; I could tell you about the awesomely stop-and-start beat and pseudo-female vocal guest spot of “Heads Hammock,” or the (bet you were all waiting for this word!) childish tinkering of “3 Umbrellas,” or “Heather in the Hospital,” subtly the most tuneful of all the tracks here. But--as you all probably have guessed by now--this here is a single organism (perhaps with some moving parts, yes), one that, song-by-song but also as a whole, explores the marsh party I thought I was missing when I was trying too hard to
listen, and one that became one of the most enjoyable musical experience when I was just
hearing. Suddenly, I’ve come to the “Lucky 1” segue again, and I’m off. “
Fly off from harder days / Today feel like the lucky one”. Indeed.
