Pitchfork review;
When the newly reissued Campfire Songs first came out in 2003, there was no such thing as Animal Collective. After releasing two albums of warped noise-pop under different combinations of weird names, Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin, and Geologist were still learning how to integrate their distinct electro-acoustic preoccupations. The "Animal Collective" brand was later affixed to it, but Campfire Songs was originally intended to be the album's eponymous title. In truth, it's more appropriate. It's not simply that they hadn't picked a name; they really weren't Animal Collective yet. This was before the "Letterman" appearances and spectrum-wide media interest; before they became the object of hit pieces and big-picture rants in the trenches of online journalism; before Deakin wanted you to help him play Mali-- basically, before Animal Collective got about as formidable, culturally and aesthetically, as a modern indie band can be. This release retroactively stresses how hard they must have had to push to get there.
It was the only time they used the name "Campfire Songs", and the album has other peculiarities. It's the only one featuring this exact line-up (Geologist didn't play, only ran the MiniDisc recorders, on the Maryland porch where the five songs were captured in one long take.) It's much more acoustic than electro, made chiefly of intertwined voices, softly droning guitars, and light natural ambiance. It's an uncommonly easeful entry into their catalog, and an important pivot. The feeling of discovery that attends it is not incidental. "Congregate," they moan portentously on "Moo Rah Rah Rain". The album sounds like a careful group of musicians on the verge of figuring out what they are.
As such, it lacks the authoritative veneer and durability of later records, from Sung Tongs onward. If you'd have said, based on this album, that these guys would be a cultural bellwether in a few years, people would have thought you were nuts (or at least massively stoned). It's difficult now to conceive of Animal Collective without vigorous rhythms, vibrant electronics, and a certain formality to their arrangements of chaos. But in retrospect, Campfire Songs already contains many essential elements that would come to define the band: Glowing vocal harmonies, the fearless use of negative space, the little snips and grafts that always temper their naturalism. The music also illustrates the drift away from masculine beats and toward sensual waves that has been indie music's prevailing current in recent years, as rock influences have lost ground. The ghosts of 1960s psychedelia and British folk haunt the vocal and guitar techniques at times, but this sound was in no way trembling on the verge of broad accessibility. They would take it there with sheer resolve, by broadening their ambition and stretching their comfort zone.
Beyond its canonical interest, Campfire Songs has its own charms. Though rigorously composed, it feels deceptively spontaneous. The atmosphere is both inviting and severe, and startlingly vivid. It's difficult to argue that it's among their best, but it could easily be your favorite, because its allure is so simple and pure. You can feel the crisp air outside where they are recording, and it feels inescapably like nighttime. It's very much like sitting by a campfire, with a hot face and freezing back. While the album's impact is limited on a song-by-song basis, it has a powerful cumulative effect.
It plays out with all the surges of inspiration and subtle modulations of mood of a mushroom trip or whatever kind of spiritual journey you favor, through the scraps of Spanish guitar of "Two Corvettes" and the shimmering "Moo Rah Rah Rain". The trip is beautifully completed with full-bore pastoral "De Soto De Son", where day breaks at last. It's the perfect cap to the record, not just aesthetically, but symbolically. Birds twitter, waking up with everything else, and the tape hiss really does seem to brighten. There's a total sense of calm, renewal, a journey completed, knowledge refreshed. Normal time resumes, and for the conglomerate creature now known as Animal Collective, it's time to get to work.
— Brian Howe, January 14, 2010
Animal Collective Campfire Songs (reissue)
Tracklistings
1.Campfire Songs
2.Queen In My Pictures
3.Doggy
4.Two Corvettes
5.Moo Rah Rah Rain
6.De Soto De Son
GET
my 2 cents; the innocence of an early band's recording you just can't beat. although they have gone on to broader pastures and more pop sensibilities, they still retain their edge in the latter work.
FYI; i have not heard all their material, so my cents may be worthless.
i like this LP.
they are modern 'campfire songs'!
2/12/10
Queen In My Pictures
Pitchfork review;
When the newly reissued Campfire Songs first came out in 2003, there was no such thing as Animal Collective. After releasing two albums of warped noise-pop under different combinations of weird names, Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin, and Geologist were still learning how to integrate their distinct electro-acoustic preoccupations. The "Animal Collective" brand was later affixed to it, but Campfire Songs was originally intended to be the album's eponymous title. In truth, it's more appropriate. It's not simply that they hadn't picked a name; they really weren't Animal Collective yet. This was before the "Letterman" appearances and spectrum-wide media interest; before they became the object of hit pieces and big-picture rants in the trenches of online journalism; before Deakin wanted you to help him play Mali-- basically, before Animal Collective got about as formidable, culturally and aesthetically, as a modern indie band can be. This release retroactively stresses how hard they must have had to push to get there.
It was the only time they used the name "Campfire Songs", and the album has other peculiarities. It's the only one featuring this exact line-up (Geologist didn't play, only ran the MiniDisc recorders, on the Maryland porch where the five songs were captured in one long take.) It's much more acoustic than electro, made chiefly of intertwined voices, softly droning guitars, and light natural ambiance. It's an uncommonly easeful entry into their catalog, and an important pivot. The feeling of discovery that attends it is not incidental. "Congregate," they moan portentously on "Moo Rah Rah Rain". The album sounds like a careful group of musicians on the verge of figuring out what they are.
As such, it lacks the authoritative veneer and durability of later records, from Sung Tongs onward. If you'd have said, based on this album, that these guys would be a cultural bellwether in a few years, people would have thought you were nuts (or at least massively stoned). It's difficult now to conceive of Animal Collective without vigorous rhythms, vibrant electronics, and a certain formality to their arrangements of chaos. But in retrospect, Campfire Songs already contains many essential elements that would come to define the band: Glowing vocal harmonies, the fearless use of negative space, the little snips and grafts that always temper their naturalism. The music also illustrates the drift away from masculine beats and toward sensual waves that has been indie music's prevailing current in recent years, as rock influences have lost ground. The ghosts of 1960s psychedelia and British folk haunt the vocal and guitar techniques at times, but this sound was in no way trembling on the verge of broad accessibility. They would take it there with sheer resolve, by broadening their ambition and stretching their comfort zone.
Beyond its canonical interest, Campfire Songs has its own charms. Though rigorously composed, it feels deceptively spontaneous. The atmosphere is both inviting and severe, and startlingly vivid. It's difficult to argue that it's among their best, but it could easily be your favorite, because its allure is so simple and pure. You can feel the crisp air outside where they are recording, and it feels inescapably like nighttime. It's very much like sitting by a campfire, with a hot face and freezing back. While the album's impact is limited on a song-by-song basis, it has a powerful cumulative effect.
It plays out with all the surges of inspiration and subtle modulations of mood of a mushroom trip or whatever kind of spiritual journey you favor, through the scraps of Spanish guitar of "Two Corvettes" and the shimmering "Moo Rah Rah Rain". The trip is beautifully completed with full-bore pastoral "De Soto De Son", where day breaks at last. It's the perfect cap to the record, not just aesthetically, but symbolically. Birds twitter, waking up with everything else, and the tape hiss really does seem to brighten. There's a total sense of calm, renewal, a journey completed, knowledge refreshed. Normal time resumes, and for the conglomerate creature now known as Animal Collective, it's time to get to work.
— Brian Howe, January 14, 2010
Animal Collective Campfire Songs (reissue)
Tracklistings
1.Campfire Songs
2.Queen In My Pictures
3.Doggy
4.Two Corvettes
5.Moo Rah Rah Rain
6.De Soto De Son
GET
my 2 cents; the innocence of an early band's recording you just can't beat. although they have gone on to broader pastures and more pop sensibilities, they still retain their edge in the latter work.
FYI; i have not heard all their material, so my cents may be worthless.
i like this LP.
they are modern 'campfire songs'!
