The cover of Animal Collective's latest record, "Strawberry Jam," is fascinating. Said jam is repulsive, captivating, almost pulsating, much like the band's music, which captures those moments in life when you're both clairvoyant and demonic. There's (rarely-in-tune) singing, screeching, lines that are brilliant, lines that are meaningless, lines that are worthless. Almost all of it rattles, in this propulsion that suggests life, in all its joy, languor and disappointments, is nothing but off-kilter.
I wonder how the band composes its music. There are verses and choruses, but it sounds like the band stumbles upon them, and when Avey Tare aka Dave Portner, or Panda Bear aka Noah Lennox, start singing, it sounds spontaneous. So much percussion, so many samples, so many unexpected sounds, so few actual instruments, and such a repetitious base, how do they plan it all? Is it all looped or do they somehow create this organically?
"Strawberry Jam." For a band that also often sounds like it's playing around a campfire on Mars, high on drugs and physics Earth will never know, what a great title. What does a strawberry jam sound like? This.
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