Track Listing

1. People
2. Tikwid
3. My Favourite Colours
4. People

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9227 in Music
• Released on: 2007-01-22
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Single, EP
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

Customer Reviews

People!
One thing you can count on Animal Collective for: Evolution.

The acid-rockers continue getting weirder and weirder in the "People" EP, which apparently heralds their latest twists in sonic experimentation. This is less pastoral and more acid-soaked than their last album, and if this is their new direction, then listeners will probably be happy to follow them.

It opens with the gentle, melodious strums and little piano plinks. The melody starts to pick up, and heavy strings and harmonies start to weave around it. Then... buzzy synth kicks in, rattling and obscuring the catchy melody until the whole title track is a tangled fuzz opera, complete with bloodcurdling yowls.

There's also a live version of this, which is more stripped-down and less synthed. It's still pretty eerie and screechy by the finale. In between these, there are two other songs: the sunny, crazyfolk "Tikwid" and the creepy ambient "My Favorite Colors," which is like listening to an opera aria underwater.

Apparently "People" is a sample of what's to come for Animal Collective. Yes, it's totally insane -- in a good way.

After years of working together, this band has gotten very polished -- they can weave together intricate tapestries of synth, lo-fi indie-rock, piano, whistles, sirens, and acidic washes of strings and fuzz. These are overlaid over catchy melodies and samples, creating very layered music that never sounds the same twice.

I'll be honest here -- that earsplitting screeching in the live "People" is really annoying, as is the expanding scream in the original. But otherwise the Animal Collective sounds great here -- Beatles-on-acid warbles in "Tikwid," ghostly noises, and howls of "yeah yeah YEAH!" throughout the title track.

"People" is a pretty weird, wild EP, and fans of Animal Collective will be thrilled by their new spins on their usual sound. Bizarre, breezy and absolutely mad.

Essential
The title track, featured here twice, is excellent enough. Airy, tribal - it's The Animal Collective in a sort of chrysalis form - the perfect mid point between the pastoral bliss of Feels and the melodic hyperkineticity of Strawberry Jam.

Be that as it may, it's the second track, Tikwid, which makes this EP worth owning. It says a lot about a band that one of the finest things they've ever produced is, technically, a b-side. (If their b-sides are THIS good etc. etc.) It's wonderful - a ridiculously catchy folk masterpiece, loaded with addictive melodies and painfully beautiful throughout. Like watching pond life as it skitters around the water at sunset.