Watching an Animal Collective concert is a feast for the eye, just by looking at their stage design. Picasso style illustrations, various shapes in the form of hands, eyes and hats provide the backdrop to their show. Beamers project brushes of color and the result is a blend of Matisse, Cubism and Dadaism.
The 3 screens under their consoles, with light work and imagination, acquired the physicality of static canvases.
It is a feast for the ears too, morphed voices, bleeps, sounds falling in free form, constrained within vaguely pop songs. Painting with is the title of their 10th studio album they presented at Rewire Festival on 2 April as part of their current world tour. Experimental indie rock should give a good definition of their style, not for everyone maybe. But most of the people from the audience where really concentrated into the show, some were nodding, others were dancing, deep into the experience.
I managed to film quite a bit of their new singles, Golden Gal and FloriDada, released by Domino Recording. Amatorial attempts like mine sprung up on various social media and it was definitely the most represented act on the #rewirefestival tag on Instagram, with short burst of video intakes from different parts of the concert hall. A communal attempt to represent something, an almost live curatorial activity.
Whilst watching them finishing their live show I thought: “Here is a band trying to tame machine music and visuals.” The outcome of mixing all these layers of computer generated art into something that can be enjoyed almost as a meditation into music, color and sound isn’t perfect, but it is in that imperfect chase of technology to represent ideas that I find a very human touch.
Ending their set with FloriDada
Catch them live at London’s Troxy on Tuesday 12 April and upcoming dates.
Photos + Videos: Beppe Simone CC BY-SA