Part soundtrack and part concept album, Animal Collective’s 11th effort flows between calm and distressing on its journey beneath the waves.
When I first learned that a member of Animal Collective went by the stage name “Panda Bear” (real name Noah Lennox), I thought “Oh, that’s why they’re called ‘Animal’ Collective! They must all have animal names.” I quickly realized this wasn’t actually the case, as the other members go by Avey Tare (David Portner), Geologist (Brian Weitz), and Deakin (Josh Dibb). You may notice that none of these are animals.
What’s more apt is the “collective” part of their name, as their lineup has been somewhat fluid over their 18-year discography. Anticipating Deakin’s presence on any given album is a crapshoot, and only four out of the group’s ten full-length albums feature the whole gang. Avey Tare and Panda Bear have been the only consistent members, and the albums Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished and Sung Tongs solely consist of this duo. The group lacks any real “frontman,” but as these two share vocal duties and have been around since the beginning, they feel like its co-captains in a way.
A first for the band, Animal Collective’s eleventh studio album Tangerine Reef does not include Panda Bear. If you’ve ever heard the band criticized as “a bunch of weird shit with the occasional listenable song,” Panda Bear is likely the one responsible for that silver lining. His contributions tend to push the band in a more accessible direction, often earning Beach Boys comparisons, and his solo work has drifted towards chillwave and synthpop. If Animal Collective regularly oscillate between cacophonous experimentation and radio-friendly melodies, it’s easy to imagine them tilting heavily towards the former without Panda Bear.
Part soundtrack and part concept album, Tangerine Reef combines the efforts of Avey Tare, Geologist, and Deakin to make a disarmingly peaceful album. At its heart, the music is meant to be only one half of an audiovisual album, like 2010’s psychedelic ODDSAC, or in their label’s press release terms, “a visual tone poem.” Yet even without the accompanying film, Tangerine Reef’s theme is still evident, bringing you on a relatively mild, if occasionally distraught, journey under the sea.
The visual part of Tangerine Reef comes from an “art-science duo” called Coral Morphologic, with whom the band have previously collaborated and even gone scuba diving. To be as literal as possible, it’s a 54 minute video of nothing but close-ups of coral and anemones. If the cynic in you thinks that sounds incredibly boring without the help of psychoactive substances, I don’t blame you. However, listening to Animal Collective’s ambient music while watching these intriguing creatures ebb and flow with oceanic currents is oddly soothing and occasionally mesmerizing, and you really do appreciate how alien certain parts of our own planet can look. More impressive is the fact that Coral Morphologic set the video to Animal Collective’s music, not the other way around, and this footage often syncs with what you’re hearing. Things will get darker and slower as the music gets softer (like during the track “Jake and Me”), and the bioluminescence of coral will flash when there’s more jarring notes (the beginning of “Coral by Numbers”). Even if you don’t sit and spend nearly an hour watching the whole thing, it’s one of the most unique music visualizations possible since the desktop media players of yesteryear.
The biggest question with audiovisual albums is how well the music functions without the accompanying visuals, and Tangerine Reef holds its own, albeit unevenly, in this regard. Coral footage or not, it’s still very much an album about reefs, which explains why four tracks have the word “coral” in their name, one is named after a type of coral (“Palythoa”), and one is named “Hip Sponge.” More importantly, it sounds like you’re on an underwater journey throughout the album, which was recorded live so it flows together completely seamlessly. The opening track “Hair Cutter” is filled with crescendos that evoke something lifting off, but the constant sounds of water splashing make you realize you’re really diving down. From that point on, you’re treated to a collection of ethereal tracks that have an otherworldly feel, and much of the album sounds like it could have been the score to a sci-fi movie as much as a nature-based art project. Some like “Buxom” sound very nautically appropriate, with its muted marimba that sounds like bubbles rising, while others like “Jake and Me” and “Palythoa” are more straightforwardly ambient. Compared to the rest of Animal Collective’s back catalogue, Tangerine Reef sounds surprisingly most like the latter half of their 2005 album Feels. If you prefer the Animal Collective of Merriweather Post Pavilion, you’ll be disappointed, but if you missed the slow-burners of their earlier days, you’re in luck.
No matter which Animal Collective you prefer though, there are parts of Tangerine Reef’s dive that send you up so fast you’ll get the bends. As if the band couldn’t let you enjoy a full album of tranquility, tracks like “Coral Understanding” and “Airpipe (To A New Transition)” are full of harsh noises that push the experimentation angle sans Panda Bear. Other tracks are less discordant, but seem like peculiar fits, like the rising and falling alien sirens of “Coral Realization” and the jarringly bleak-sounding “Lundsten Coral.” Outside of the instrumentation, Avey Tare does an unexceptional job as the sole vocalist on the album. At best, his voice is incomprehensible and completely garbled like he’s underwater himself, blending in like another layer of synthesizer. When he is understandable though, he tends to repeat the same lines over and over in an exasperated tone, like “just a simple phrase” on “Coral Understanding.” “Hip Sponge,” however, takes the cake for irritation, as Avey says nothing but “the time is now/now is the time” and “eyes on the prize” for what feels like hundreds of times, really kicking you out of any sense of calm.
It’s hard to say that there’s a message to Tangerine Reef beyond “coral is cool, save the coral,” and any deeper attempts are probably just projection. To this end, it’s hard to watch the video and not find it at least a little captivating, and Animal Collective have easily succeeded in making throngs of hipsters think about coral for the first time since their class field trips to the aquarium. As a musical experience, however, it’s a milder success. Animal Collective have proven once again that they can do ambient well, this time with a unifying theme, and the first slew of tracks are brilliant. Not content to let us get comfortable though, the band’s penchant for weirdness often overwhelms. Tangerine Reef is altogether more enjoyable than the mess that was 2016’s Painting With, and definitely sticks out among their catalogue with its specialized niche, but it probably won’t beckon you back to the depths after your dive.
Rating: 6.5/10
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