Artist: Animal Collective
Title: Grass
Format: 7"
Label: Fat Cat
Catalogue Number: 7FAT19
Year of Release: 2005
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Tracklisting:
A1 Grass
A2 Must Be Treeman
B1 Fickle Cycle
This single was released just three weeks prior to the album Feels, and I think it makes an odd choice for a single (this is perhaps referred to by the ironic "Another American Classic" on the sleeve front...) The chorus comprises the shouting of "pow! now!" repeatedly, which would put some people off, and isn't indicative the album itself. It may just be that, at three minutes long, Grass is the perfect single length. Maybe I'm wrong to try and look logically on a band who sing, "who rubs our noses in the night? we do we do".
I only know that they sing those words because the lyrics have been provided by the band, and are listed on the deftone.com site, along with an earlier rib-tickling stab at the lyrics by some fans. The delivery is slower than some of the bonkers tunes off Sung Tongs, but it's still hard to grasp what they're banging on about without the transcription.
As it stands I think Boomkat have done the best summing up (while also mightily dissing the Polyphonic Spree) but they neglect to mention the tender-heartedness of some of the sentiments expressed, the nervousness of not knowing whether love is reciprocated:
would you like to see me often
though you don't need to see me often
cause I'd like to see you often
though I don't need to see you often
A gentle tune in the end, despite the shouty bits.
Must Be Treeman starts with a female vocal sample that might be "Warning", but it's very lo-fi, and looped quickly with a slow bass-synth burp, delay effects and other noises, so it soon gets hard to tell. There is what sounds like Rhodes piano, some light guitar, percussion and pitch-shifted distorted vocals, sometimes saying the song title, sometimes not. As AngryApe says, it's experimental. The track finishes with a high, quiet siren, which is rather nice.
Fickle Cycle is a fast, frantic tune in comparison. 4/4 drums with clicking percussion and excitable vocals and guitar. Sounds like children chanting a song for skipping. Lyrics are on seeklyrics.com. It builds slowly, noisier and noisier, there are a couple of explosive screams, then it quietens down to 'I wonder' lyrics, and the part about:
Bad feelings I know
Good silence means we're home
Which is sung much more slowly than the chanted opening. I think it's slightly sinister, and the screaming of the track title towards the end backs me up, I think.
You sometimes never know where you are with this band, which is a very good thing indeed.
