Comin' around to Animal Collective

Here's a thought on the last Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post-Pavilion (do I have that right? Lemme check itunes...oops, no hyphen). The music is kind of like the framework for an F. Buckminster Fuller (do I have that right?) geodesic dome: very impressive, structurally, and certainly overarching, but where's the material inside the hexagons? Where's the warm stuff inside these interesting shapes?

Well, there's certainly some of that. Earlier, I thought I'd make the point that a framework geo-dome is not where you'd want to be during, say, a rainstorm, which I wanted to use to suggest that when the emotional chips are down, one might reach for music with more pathos or soul. I don't mean to be a hater; there's definitely something about a band that seems so committed to music-making and yet inspires so many grimaces, nonetheless. But is this music for smarty-pants liberal arts kids, and S.P.L.A.K.'s only? One thing's for sure: I have whiffed, and whiffed hard, at creating any kind of memorable acronym here.

We (my roommate, his girlfriend, and I) saw them somewhere in Midtown, and the sonic scene (just wanted to use the phrase) was like a be-in in Golden Gate Park, 1967, filtered through a million smashed pieces of vinyl and poured into a rave. I appreciated it, it was cool, but I wasn't swooning. When you notice that you're appreciating, more than, say, genuinely enjoying, you can feel fatigued almost right away. But now Summertime Clothes is playing on my itunes, and I am enjoying, babe. Feel that chorus.