{"id":42093,"date":"2010-08-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/oddsac\/"},"modified":"2010-08-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-30T00:00:00","slug":"oddsac","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/oddsac\/","title":{"rendered":"ODDSAC"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been a longstanding tradition of bands, rock and pop alike, releasing films to accompany their music. Usually these generally seem to fall squarely into the \u201clive performance\u201d category. While there is certainly nothing wrong with that approach, some especially ambitious acts seek to go much further. The Who and Pink Floyd cast their career-defining rock operas with real actors and made twisted musicals in \u201cTommy\u201d and \u201cThe Wall.\u201d Frank Zappa\u2019s \u201c200 Motels\u201d and The Monkees\u2019 \u201cHead\u201d put songs next to bizarre plots and sets, with only the slightest attempt at coherency made. But Animal Collective really take it all the way. On ODDSAC<\/i> they (along with director Danny Perez) nearly completely rid themselves of any notions of plot. Officially, it\u2019s not even a movie; the band is calling it a \u201cvisual album,\u201d meant to be viewed as one would listen to a normal LP of music.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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Generally within each scene coherent things happen and there are several reoccurring images throughout, but in no way can you say that there is any underlying point behind these visuals that either imparts a message or ties things neatly together. The only purpose to the visual side of this project seems to just be to look really neat. It\u2019s actually very comparable to how some kinds of music videos work. However, the key difference between ODDSAC<\/i> and a simple collection of music videos is that the band wrote the music simultaneously with the visuals, letting aspects of each influence each other. To further emphasize how the music and the movie go together, the band has even made the choice to not release the soundtrack separately from the DVD. Perhaps surprisingly, even though they approached it this way, the music and the visuals are not inseparable.<\/p>\n

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Listened to on its own, the music of ODDSAC<\/i> is certainly the most suite-like collection of songs the band has attempted to date. Each song flows seamlessly into the next, switching from proto-ambient soundscapes to fully-fledged songs and back again. Unsurprisingly, for a movie, there are many sound effects, yet nothing from the film will take you out of a music-only listen to the album. When Animal Collective claims that they provided the soundtrack to this film they meant it. Every sound you hear they put there. Nearly no sound is actually imparted from something on screen. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

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In fact, if it weren’t for a short segment featuring a kid talking about \u201cGreen Beans,\u201d you might not even notice whether the audio was out of sync or not. Unlike on Animal Collective\u2019s previous few releases, it\u2019s not easy to pick out tracks that can easily stand on their own. Even the more straightforward, song-based material is enhanced and modified by its surroundings. \u201cTantrum Barb\u201d doesn\u2019t seem complete without its lead-in \u201cWorking.\u201d Likewise \u201cMess Hour House\u201d and \u201cWhat Happened\u201d also make a nice pair. \u201cScreens\u201d recalls Pink Floyd in their folkier moments and brings back the acoustic guitar that has been largely absent from Animal Collective\u2019s music in recent years. The opening \u201cMr. Fingers\u201d is certainly the most fully-realized track here, gradually building psychedelic steam over its seven minutes.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s great fun seeing the band members each acting (well, as much as one can act in a movie like this anyway). Avey Tare plays some sort of monster, Deakin plays a vampire, Geologist washes satin orbs and makes faces, and Panda Bear plays drums. These scenes, along with the other live action moments, are by far the highlights as far as the visuals are concerned. At several points, the film decides to play around with flashing images and kaleidoscope-like effects. Perhaps viewers who\u2019ve decided to place themselves in certain \u201cenhanced states of consciousness\u201d (so to speak) might enjoy these scenes, but for the most part, they just make me dizzy.<\/p>\n

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I can\u2019t help but feel that, due to its unusual nature, ODDSAC<\/i> is destined to end up being overlooked in Animal Collective\u2019s discography. It could be argued that up to this point every subsequent album has broken new ground from the one before, and for the first time, that\u2019s not the case here. The music and images were gradually assembled over the last several years, and by that notion sounds like aspects of their last several albums. But breaking new ground really isn\u2019t the point here. Instead, ODDSAC<\/i> seems to function as a kind of punctuation mark. It summarizes the band\u2019s music of the past decade, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, their electronic and acoustic sides, and their song based and ambient sides, along with their different approaches to music-making and creativity. Only time will tell if this marks and end of an era for Animal Collective or simply a mere pause in their natural progression as a band.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":30430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8255],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-42093","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-animal-collective","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42093"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}