''Painting With'' is the tenth studio album by American
experimental pop band
Animal Collective
Animal Collective is an American experimental pop band formed in Baltimore, Maryland. Its members consist of Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Geologist (Brian Weitz), and Deakin (Josh Dibb). The band's work is characterized ...
, released on February 19, 2016. The album is a follow-up to ''
Centipede Hz
''Centipede Hz'' is the ninth studio album by American experimental pop group Animal Collective, released on September 4, 2012 on Domino Recording Company, Domino Records. The album marks the return of band member Deakin (musician), Deakin, who s ...
'' (2012), and features contributions from
John Cale
John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styl ...
and
Colin Stetson.
It peaked at No. 46 on the
''Billboard'' 200. Three singles were issued: "
FloriDada
"FloriDada" is a song by Animal Collective, released as the first single from their 2016 album ''Painting With''. It was released on November 30, 2015 by Domino Records. Avey Tare explained that the song was "sort of inspired by hating on people ...
" (2015), "Lying in the Grass", and "Golden Gal" (both 2016). A companion
EP, ''
The Painters
''The Painters'' is the eighth EP by American experimental pop band Animal Collective, released on February 17, 2017. It is the first extended play released by the band since ''Monkey Been to Burn Town'' (2013). The EP serves as a companion to t ...
'', was released the following year.
For ''Painting With'', the band's line-up consists of
Avey Tare
David Michael Portner (born April 24, 1979), also known by his moniker Avey Tare, is a musician and songwriter who co-founded the American experimental pop band Animal Collective. He has released three solo albums, as well as three collaborative ...
(David Portner),
Panda Bear
The giant panda (''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''), also known as the panda bear (or simply the panda), is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its bold black-and-white coat and rotund body. The name "giant panda" is sometimes use ...
(Noah Lennox), and
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...
(Brian Weitz), the same trio which participated for ''
Merriweather Post Pavilion'' (2009).
Deakin (Josh Dibb), who had rejoined the band in November 2010 for ''Centipede Hz'', and toured with them from 2011 to 2013, is absent.
Background and recording
After touring for ''
Centipede Hz
''Centipede Hz'' is the ninth studio album by American experimental pop group Animal Collective, released on September 4, 2012 on Domino Recording Company, Domino Records. The album marks the return of band member Deakin (musician), Deakin, who s ...
'' (2012), the band felt stressed out, and retreated to individual side-projects. David Portner (
Avey Tare
David Michael Portner (born April 24, 1979), also known by his moniker Avey Tare, is a musician and songwriter who co-founded the American experimental pop band Animal Collective. He has released three solo albums, as well as three collaborative ...
) formed
Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks
''Enter the Slasher House'' is the debut album by Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks, consisting of Avey Tare of Animal Collective, ex-Dirty Projectors member Angel Deradoorian, and ex-Ponytail drummer Jeremy Hyman. The first single from the album, "Littl ...
, Noah Lennox (
Panda Bear
The giant panda (''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''), also known as the panda bear (or simply the panda), is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its bold black-and-white coat and rotund body. The name "giant panda" is sometimes use ...
) recorded his fifth solo album ''
Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper'' (2015), and Brian Weitz (
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...
) took care of his newborn daughter for the latter half of 2014.
In early 2015, Lennox confirmed that the band would be returning to the studio to record a new album, while Portner intimated in April: "Yeah, over the past few months I've been writing some songs. I think we're starting to have a group of songs that we're thinking about recording."
![AC at Drop of Sun 2015](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/AC_at_Drop_of_Sun_2015._b.jpg)
In May 2015, Animal Collective began writing and rehearsing new material at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, North Carolina and
EastWest Studios
EastWest Studios (formerly known as Western Studio, a component of United Western Recorders and later Ocean Way Recording) is a recording studio complex located at 6000 West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Originally constructed by Bill Putnam in ...
,
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
. The band recorded in the Studio 3 room at EastWest, the same room used by
Brian Wilson
Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often called a genius for his novel approaches to pop composition, extraordinary musical aptitude, and m ...
for
the Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American Rock music, rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian Wilson, Brian, Dennis Wilson, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and frie ...
' albums ''
Pet Sounds'' (1966) and ''
Smile''.
The album was subsequently mixed at Gang Recording Studio in
Paris, France
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
with Sonny DiPerri. Portner called it "incredible" to record in EastWest: "You really understand that there is an art that goes into building rooms like that. It’s no surprise so many good records have been created there. I think
astWest’s original constructor Bill Putnam was a genius."
Weitz recalls that while at EastWest: "The guys would deliver
nstruments to us... they'd be like, 'This was used in ''
Planet of the Apes
''Planet of the Apes'' is an American science fiction media franchise consisting of films, books, television series, comics, and other media about a world in which humans and intelligent apes clash for control. The franchise is based on Frenc ...
''. These metal rods that make these singing tones' … they're like 'These are from
the ''Poltergeist'' soundtrack."
Guest appearances include
John Cale
John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styl ...
, who recorded a drone part for the track "Hocus Pocus".
Portner explained: "My sister has been working on the visual side of John’s more recent live shows. She discovered that he was actually a fan of our music, which made us really psyched. We had this part that we just couldn’t nail or get to sound right in “Hocus Pocus,” and I really thought we should have someone attempt to do it with a live instrument. Because of the drone-y string sound we wanted to achieve, we all thought John would be great for it."
Music
The album's
color palette is dominated by
modular synthesizer
Modular synthesizers are synthesizers composed of separate modules for different functions. The modules can be connected together by the user to create a patch. The outputs from the modules may include audio signals, analog control voltages, o ...
s and an array of percussion instruments borrowed from the collection of studio drummer
Emil Richards.
In contrast to their previous work, Animal Collective decided to eliminate the reverb effects and drawn-out musical passages. Portner commented: "Everything seems drenched in reverb these days, and is so ''distant''. In a way, it was a reaction to that."
Weitz added: "We talked about no ambient
assages Even
009's ''Merriweather Post Pavilion'', people were saying was our poppiest record up to that point, but there still were like long, drawn-out passages of drone. With this one we were just like in and out. No long buildups to get to it, no long outros. We talked about, like, our
Ramones
The Ramones were an American punk rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first true punk rock group. Despite achieving a limited commercial appeal in the United ...
record."
Lennox elaborated with a comparison to
the first Ramones album: The group drew on ideas of the prehistoric, such as cave paintings and dinosaurs, which were used to influence the songwriting process and the recording sessions themselves, "
iming to eschewslow jams for a set of songs inspired by more elemental pleasures ...
ndartists who could make a lot happen in a short amount of time," writes Jeremy Gordon.
[
]
Promotion and release
On July 15, 2015, EastWest announced that the band had finished recording their new album, the follow-up to ''Centipede Hz''. On November 25, the album premiered over the speakers of Baltimore-Washington International Airport, and played on loop until the evening. Using Sony's Music Track ID system, it was discovered that the airport recordings belonged to an unreleased 12-track Animal Collective album entitled ''Painting With''. A representative of the band responded with "no comment today", while Portner confirmed that "FloriDada
"FloriDada" is a song by Animal Collective, released as the first single from their 2016 album ''Painting With''. It was released on November 30, 2015 by Domino Records. Avey Tare explained that the song was "sort of inspired by hating on people ...
", the impending single from the album, would be released on November 30. On November 30, "FloriDada" was released and the album and track listing were officially revealed. The same day, both the LP and CD versions of the album were made available for pre-order. Upon pre-ordering the vinyl, users received an immediate download of "FloriDada" as well as an eventual 7" containing two new tracks "Gnip Gnop" and "Hounds of Bairro". On January 28, 2016, a promotional video was released to youtube revealing a new "Painting With" app for iOS. This app allowed early access to the song "Lying in the Grass" for the first time.
The album has three distinct covers painted by Brian DeGraw which individually depict Portner, Lennox, and Weitz.
Critical reception
''Painting With'' received mostly positive reviews from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...
score of 69, based on 36 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".[ '']Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
''s Jon Dolan called it "weirdly addictive and enjoyably absurd". Marc Hogan of Spin
Spin or spinning most often refers to:
* Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning
* Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis
* Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...
praised the album for its "richness" in his review, stating, "It’s poppier, in a characteristically warped way, than even ''Merriweather Merriweather is a surname deriving from the Middle English ''merie'', meaning 'merry pleasant' and ''wether'', meaning weather.
Notable people with the surname "Merriweather" include
*Alfred Merriweather (1918–1999), British missionary and polit ...
'', the group's most popular album to date. That’s down to the record’s rarely wavering energy; subtle details abound in the interplay between Lennox and Portner’s near-indistinguishably overlapping yawps, or in the giddy, ping-ponging sonic backdrops, but that’s all a bonus when the songs bounce along like Tigger in a 5 Hour Energy ad." Jamie Atkins of ''Record Collector
''Record Collector'' is a British monthly music magazine. It was founded in 1980 and distributes worldwide.
History The early years
The first standalone issue of ''Record Collector'' was published in March 1980, though its history stretches ba ...
'' compared the album's sound to the soundtrack of the 1992 video game '' Sonic the Hedgehog 2'', "the band sounding like a motley crew of Deadheads and club kids stuck between the Mystic Cave and Oil Ocean zones, in constant fear of Dr Robotnik's frankly unreasonable temper and whichever drill or submarine he might pilot next." It continues: "It does take repeated listens for the album to really make sense, but when the mood fits, ''Painting Is'' hits the spot."
Jamieson Cox of the Verge
''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts.
The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...
characterized ''Painting With'' as: "bright, tidy, and a little disappointing ... They were the last band you expected to end up sounding workmanlike." Mike Powell of Pitchfork Media
''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog.
Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...
added, "''Painting With'' feels, more than anything, like a kind of construction project: Each sound meticulously built and only faintly familiar, each second crammed with doodads, as though the band was worried either they or their audience might get bored. The human voice, which in the past has given their music not just a so-called human element but a devotional, almost religious glow, has been reduced to a party trick, with Avey Tare and Panda Bear trading syllables like two anxious Globetrotters. The album's best songs—"Golden Gal," "Recycling"—aren't just highlights, they're breathers."
In a negative review, Lee Arizuno of '' The Quietus'' called the album "absolute dogshit from start to finish", repeatedly describing each song as "a sing-song number with faux–naïf lyrics ... and EDM belches". Adam Downer of '' Paste'' compared it to the "legion of small-time blog bands in the early 2010s ... who could do a decent facsimile of the Animal Collective sound but lacked the intangibles to garner their acclaim ... he album is
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
not very noteworthy, the band nowhere close to fulfilling its potential. The scariest thing ''Painting With'' leaves behind is the feeling that Animal Collective think that’s perfectly fine."
Track listing
Personnel
;Animal Collective
*Panda Bear
The giant panda (''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''), also known as the panda bear (or simply the panda), is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its bold black-and-white coat and rotund body. The name "giant panda" is sometimes use ...
(Noah Lennox)
*Avey Tare
David Michael Portner (born April 24, 1979), also known by his moniker Avey Tare, is a musician and songwriter who co-founded the American experimental pop band Animal Collective. He has released three solo albums, as well as three collaborative ...
(David Portner)
*Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...
(Brian Weitz)
;Additional musicians
*John Cale
John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styl ...
– drone on "Hocus Pocus"[
* Colin Stetson - saxophone on "Floridada"]
Charts
References
{{Authority control
2016 albums
Animal Collective albums
Domino Recording Company albums
Psychedelic pop albums
Experimental pop albums
Albums recorded at EastWest Studios