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Painting With

Animal Collective’s much anticipated tenth studio album, Painting With, is released this month. With Deakin once again missing from the line-up, we’re back with the trio who brought us Merriweather Post Pavilion, a favourite amongst the masses. No strangers to the psychedelic realms of experimental pop, AC’s new album encapsulates their party spirit with their most accessible album yet.

The first track and single 'FloriDada', released in November, lays out what this new album is all about. Dada in name, dada in nature. If music had been a little bit more advanced in the early 20th century, the whole album could have been the poster child of the art movement. Gone are the dreary intervals of heavily reverberating synth, replaced by a bouncing, upbeat energy running through the entire album.

Aside from the opening track, highlights include the syncopated vocals and drum beats of 'Lying In The Grass' and the fast pace of 'On Delay', both of which carry so much movement you can’t help but give in to the rhythm.

With the ever recognisable vocal pairing of Avey Tare and Panda Bear giving this artful record the cadence of Animal Collective that we’ve known and loved for the past 15 years, Painting With is proof of the constantly evolving life of a truly iconic band. And with three different pieces of album artwork painted by Brian DeGraw to collect, depicting the three members in all their avant-garde glory, it looks like one copy won’t cut it.

by Tasha Franek (she/her)