Animal Collective

Animal Collective is one of the names that is usually associated with today’s avant-garde music. Althougth the band’s music is usually classified as rock, it is hard to define the Animal Collective’s sound because of their usuall experiments with various genres. It is even hard to define Animal Collective’s line-up because of its constant changes – some musicians are leaving, some are returning, and so on. Despite all of this, the band manages to retain its popularity for more than eight years, releasing critically acclaimed albums one after another.

Animal Collective founders known as Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) and Deakin (Josh Dibb) originally met in the second grade and became friends. Later, Deakin found an alternative band Automine with his high school friends Avey Tare (David Portner) and Geologist (Brian Weitz). All four played music in different variations – for example, Panda Bear and Deakin released an album titled Panda Bear. They also established a record label Soccer Star Records. Originally, their aim was only to release this album, but later Soccer Star morphed into the Animal label, with the intention of putting out music that came from the Animal Collective. An album titlted Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished, that is considered to be Animal Collective’s first record, was written mostly by Avey Tare and released in August 2000. Later, the band moved to New York and recorded second disk Danse Manatee (released in July 2001), which was based on their live performances in clubs. This way of preparing material in the live setting and then recording it would become a trademark of Animal Collective.

The band’s next release, live album Hollinndagain, was released in 2002 in limited to only 300 copies, each featuring a one-of-a-kind handmade cover. It became the rarest of Animal Collective’s artifacts. Next record Campfire Songs, which appeared in March 2003, was also recorded live and based on Animal Collective’s early performances in New York. Musicians say that they aimed to make it «as warm and inviting as a campfire». Actually, the band did not have a name until that date, and only after record company suggested that a unifying name would be necessary for the marketplace, the group decided to adopt a catch-all name. Also, all of the afore-mentioned albums did not feature all four Animal Collective founders. Their first album recorded together and released under the name Animal Collective was Here Comes The Indian, which appeared in stores in June 2003. Animal Collective kept on rocking and improving their skills and their discography was enlarged by an extremely interesting work titled ODDSAC in 2010. The video, which had been created by Danny Perez and the band’s music complement each other perfectly, however there is absolutely no doubt that the quartet’s compositions can create the incredible atmosphere by their own