If you’re interested in Animal Collective, you know Down There is the first solo album by David Portner, aka Avey Tare. You’re also more used to Panda Bear’s solo collections, but don’t expect Person Pitch (or what you expect to get from Tom Boy). Portner adds a different element to AC and this is a distinctly darker monster. (Don’t worry, it’s not Pullhair Rubeye … though some of us did find going backwards interesting, for what it’s worth…)
The crocodile-inspired Down There was recorded in June by Portner and AC bandmate Josh Dibb, aka Deakin, in a church in upstate New York. The 35-minute collection mixes a playful kaleidoscopic uplift with a bubbly, boggy undertow. You got a sense of this via the first single and closer “Lucky 1.” There are songs about ghosts, rain, cemeteries, the hospital, umbrellas, skulls living in rocks. It’s a damp, sloshing, eerie outing with the occasional bent, slowed vocals — but one that never loses its “sunny” pop pulse. Portner manages to make things skeletal and endlessly lush (grab your earphones). It also feels both sketchy and fully realized. (All pluses.)
Down There opens with “Laughing Hieroglyphic,” an urgent airy (sort of) love song that feels like it was built on the back of a cranking circus pump organ. It’s the longest track on the album, lending weight to beginnings. The sample at the end of it is threaded into the chirpier, vocally overlapping “3 Umbrellas,” one that has a beach-side “Day-O” vibe and, because of its vocal layers, may remind you of Animal Collective more than the others. That feeling shifts on the murkier, more submerged, glitchy, and iced “Oliver Twist,” a song that features vocals that sound like they’ve been recorded on wet tape. Even then, you’ll be toe-tapping. Open-ended and abstract doesn’t mean without hooks. The echoed shivers, loops and fragile notes of “Glass Bottom Boat,” the mostly suffocated “Heads Hammock” (which turns into a boy-girl chant-along), and especially the warping, gurgling sing-along of “Ghost Of Books,” all feature assured melodies and, importantly here, an emotional tug within the waves and shadows. Things get darker on “Cemeteries,” but not too dark. (Of note: “Heather In The Hospital” sounds like Ween.)
If you’re a fan of earlier, sparer and more mysterious Animal Collective you should be way into Down There‘s understated, complex collection of just-in-time-for-Halloween pop music.
Down There is out 10/26 via Paw Tracks.
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Who thinks this will get Best New Music? Tough call
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Oliver Twist is really hard too!
Your opinion is discredited for thinking Halcyon Digest was filled with bullshit. It’s one of the better records put out in the past couple of years.
Wrong!
Swim
Before Today
Ecailles De Lune
Clinging To A Scheme
Age Of Adz
Sir Luscious Left Foot
Public Strain
Gemini
Hidden Islands
and Best Bless were all better that Halycon Digest and thats just this year.
If your album crosses the 9.0 threshold then pretty much every song should be f-ing amazing. At least 90% of the album should be instant-classic material. Right?
Halcyon Digest does not rise to that level, though it’s a fine set of tunes.
I think the interns there at P4K were just crushing a bit too hard that day and it obviously affected the reviewers.
That might depend on how good the Warpaint album is. They come out on the same day and I don’t think P4K often BNMs two things on the same day.
My money’d be on Warpaint coming out on top.
Where the fuck is all this Deerhunter hate coming from? Y’all (the general y’all, not specifically y’all) were fucking creaming your pants when Stereogum did its PE. Off the top of my head “Earthquake” “Revival” “Cornado” “Desire Lines” are songs I’ve listened to practically nonstop since that album came out. And you seriously think Before Today is a better album than Halcyon Digest? Seriously? Serrrriously????!!! That piece of shit couldn’t write a good pop song even if Phil Spector gave him lyrics and instruments.
Excluding Age of Adz (which I would say is superior to Halcyon Digest maybe), and Sir Luscious Left Foot, that list is very lukewarm.
Um…Yeah… Coronado, Desire Lines and Helicopter are great. The rest are just okay. Before Today is fantastic from start to finish! Not a bad song on that thing. Round and Round is a Monster of a pop song. Have One On Me is a killer record too! As is Everything In Between. And you didn’t like Caribou’s new album??? What? I actually am starting to like Down There better than Halycon Digest too! Microcastle and Cryptograms rocked though!!!!
Round and Round is alright. I personally don’t understand this obsession right now with this bad 80s R&B/smooth jazz shit. When I listen to music I don’t want to be reminded of my dentist’s office. Agree with Have One On Me. Everything in Between is a better, less-filler version of Nouns which makes me like it. I haven’t listened to Swim, but it’s on my to-do list since I loved Andorra. Microcastle and Cryptograms are great, but I think the band’s song writing and overall instrumentation is more cohesive and more developed on Halcyon Digest.
I personally love the record, its my favorite of this year so far, Age of Adz and This is Happening come close. But thats just me, so lets not blog crucify me for a simple opinion.
My guess is p4k will not best new music it but will give it in the 8s. Reason being is they might find it a little to murky as well as not wanting to seem like total animal collective purists. Thats my guess but id personally give the record a 9.3. Murky as hell yet totally danceable. That is just a unique.
your simple opinion happens to be a good one… this and deerhunter are my two favorites at the moment
Totally agree. As long as it gets the rating it deserves I couldn’t give two shits about BNM.
Can’t believe the Avey Tare album is already out and there’s still no release date for Tomboy!
Couldn’t agree more with you on that last part. Halcyon Digest is Deerhunter at their best. It’s definitely on my top 10 list for the year.
Better than panda bear.
“Oliver Twist” to me sounds like How to Dress Well would sound like like if they weren’t so lo-fi. Pretty great track.
Yes!! Personally it reminded me of My Love by Justin Timberlake… haha good song
I’m shocked that with all these comments, no one is mentioning that this album is pretty damn boring. I hope this doesn’t get Best New Music…Because I’m just not feeling this at all. Super uninteresting. A couple good songs, the rest feel like sketches for what could end up being AC songs.
And I’m not saying it’s a bad album, it’s just not that great. I think Best New Music would be a stretch for this one. Still a worthwhile listen, though.
Yeah I’m with you. Maybe it’s just people who aren’t interested in the album aren’t interested in talking about it. It’s cool so many people are digging it, but it’s simply not for me.
Does anybody else think the transition from Heather in the Hospital to Lucky 1 is perfect?
agreed. it just comes out of nowhere and smacks you in the face, every time, even when you’re expecting it
why has no-one here acknowledged the brilliance of undoubtedly the best track on the album, ‘laughing hieroglyphic’? I love the album but it’s head and shoulders above the rest, and sits along side some of panda bear’s and AC’s best work.
this is probably my favorite track too! i cant help but picture avey singing it live in my head when i listen to it (which would be the best thing ever, though i doubt it will happen). he really shows a new dimension that we haven’t seen from him before in this song, though: he’s got so much sooouuulll!
I bet a lot of the people on here who claim to love this record will disown it if Pitchfork gives it a bad rating. Honestly, what authority do they have? I think this is a great record that really resonates with me, (I’m also one to think that AC & co. can do no wrong) but others are going to disagree. And that’s okay. It’s music, man.
More people complain about people blindly following the tastes of Pitchfork than blindly follow the tastes of Pitchfork.
As someone who complains about people blindly following the tastes of Pitchfork, you may be absolutely right now that I think about it in terms of people I know.
I’d give it about a 7.9.
Man.
This album SUCKS.
Avey Tare killed it. I Definitely dig this more than Panda’s releases.
This IS a very good album, but I think perhaps you need to relisten to “Person Pitch.”
I wasn’t all that into it at first, but its definitely a grower. Now I can’t stop listening to it.