Brother Sport - Animal Collective

Brother Sport

There's a live version on the Animal Collective Centipede Hertz bonus cd. This is everything all those bible-bashers warned roll 'n' rollers about. Loud. Jungle drums. Screams. No words. Unintelligible words. The drums insanely high in the mix. Kick drum insanely high in the drum mix. Hypnotic. Trippy.

Here's MM's take on it:

Happy New Year YAAKpackers

Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances (Tumblr being a knob and crashing whilst I was writing it, on two seperate occasions), my review of 2011 will come a little bit late. Probably somewhere in that ‘I’m-bored-of-reviews-of-the-year-gone-by’ period of time.

But in the meantime, I hope you have some time to rest, recuperate and take stock of the important things. It’s easy to lose yourself in a post-yuletide wilderness around this time of year, and there are a lot of trees to see woods through.

So as a treat here’s a story:

I hate winter. The only two things I like about winter is football and Christmas. I hate the cold. I have Reynard’s and my hands go orange and blue. Then my hands go white. Then my hands go even whiter. Then I have to get blood into my fingers and toes where there is absolutely no blood rather urgently or risk amputation.

I hate the dark. The dark is oppressive and affects my mood. It makes me feel like I have to waste my life indoors and it feels unnatural and unforgiving.

I hate the rain. I hate the wind. The wind and rain together make me really cold. I hate being cold. See above.

I hate buses. Buses take an hour and a half to get from Brighton to Eastbourne, which is a 40 minute car journey.

I hate having £5 in my bank account. I hate knowing I have to get the 7.30 bus tomorrow to get into work at 9.00 (this time a 25 minute car journey). Blah blah blah, first world problems, white whine, spoilt brat.

But I got off of the hour and a half bus I spent the last of my money on, into a foul evening of sheeting rain and howling wind, before the 7.30 bus tomorrow morning, into the cold, cold night that was driving into my face, making my ears ring, my teeth chatter.

And I listened to this.

And I smiled.


* * *


Open up your throat.

That's a cheap way to fill a post – just nick the boy's effort and paste it in, heh!

We saw Animal Collective. It was, without any doubt, right up there with the best of the best. The bass drum was actually rattling things. Like internal organs. How the building stood up to it, I don't know. No hi-hat. A balloon shaker instead. Songs ran into each other. Images were projected behind the band. All four, together. The sort of experience that leaves you shaking at the end. They played Brother Sport, a great song.

The studio version starts with the 'open up your throat' call-and-response, keyboard pan pipes – then the drums thud in for the 'way you play' phase. Next, the hypnotic section, repetition with slight changes, vocal pops and rhythm shakers, which segues into the 'real good shot' vocals over bass and shakers before the synthesiser whoops give that early indication (ghost film music style) that something's about to take off. Six minutes of blissful noise.

The live version is longer by just over a minute (MM's much more natural writing about music – I just agonised needlessly over 'is longer' as against 'clocks in at'). Less crisp and looser without any hint of the chaos it could easily descend into. The vocal interplay is superb, the percussion just has to come from a keyboard loop as much as the drums, and there's a reminder of rattling internal organs (I think I suffered a detached heart, lung, other minor bits of offal).

This is strong, inventive music. This is what you get when non-virtuoso kids with inspiration, ideas, and the dedication to master the techniques they need, develop a bit of chemistry and spark off each other.

Open up your throat here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9WVVWSdlSk

Monkey Riches is up first. Headphones up as high as you can stand now. Bit higher. Teeth loosening? Tad higher, I think.

All killer no filler. In Mo' Meta Blues Questlove talks about deejaying, and his theory is that you need some filler, so that when the first few bars of killer hit the turntable, ears prick up and feet hit the dance floor. See Animal Collective for an alternative theory: there's no let up. Not a second to catch your breath.