The snozzberries taste like snozzberries.

Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam

[4/5]

The freakiest freak-folk is rarely as freakish as the more disorienting triumphs of Strawberry Jam, a neo-psychedelic mind-fuck from Animal Collective, the brains behind such headphone-warping masterstrokes as "Flesh Canoe" and "Daffy Duck." From the waltz-time throb of an opening track whose first words are "A peacebone got found in the dinosaur wing" to the spaced-out keyboard loops and eerie, Ween-like monologues of "#1," it's clear the lunatics are still running the tape machines in this asylum. And the lyrics are as twisted as the musical non sequiturs, from "The other side of take-out is mildew on rice" to the moment of truth in "Unsolved Mysteries" where looking into someone's eyes reveals him to be Jack the Ripper. The quirky world-music vibe of "Chores" suggests the guys in Modest Mouse doing bong hits to Graceland, while the melody to "Fireworks" is damn near soulful-just the thing to underscore the romantically challenged appeal of "I was dreaming of just you/Now our cereal, it is warm" (although the song does drift into more experimental waters halfway through). As poppy as those moments are, though, most tracks would scare the living daylights out of many people who actually listen to pop. (DOMINO) Ed Masley

ROCKS LIKE:
Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
Panda Bear's Person Pitch
Pink Floyd's A Saucerful Of Secrets

IN-STORE SESSION WITH MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST JOSH DIBB (AKA DEAKIN):

How important do you think it is to change things up with each release?

To push things forward out of our comfort zone into something new and adventurous is what keeps it fun for us. So I would say it is totally essential. The truth is, I get bored with musicians that keep making the same record over and over again, even if I think it is brilliant. So I need to hold myself up to that same standard. I don't want to bore myself. And I don't mean to say I think that we are better than anyone who doesn't live up to the same goal. It is just what keeps us happy.

What effect do you think the pace at which you record new albums has had on the band's evolution?

We just all like to push forward as much as we can. We get bored quickly and don't like playing the same songs over and over again. At a certain point, they reach their maximum potential for that moment and you really just want to try something new.

A lot of fans were really into "Street Flash" on the last tour. Why did that not make the album?

Before we recorded it, I think we all sort of assumed that a lot of live favorites would be on the album. But once we started to record, it felt like there was a certain energy for the record that didn't leave any comfortable space for slower jams.

Why Strawberry Jam?

Noah [Lennox, aka Panda Bear] opened a package of Strawberry Jam on a plane during our summer of '06 tour. He pointed to it and said that the way that Strawberry Jam looked was how he wanted the record to sound-organic and synthetic at the same time.

Is "#1" as scary as I think it is?

It is what you think it is. I have always appreciated the fact that the way that we make music and the way that Dave [Portner, aka Avey Tare] and Noah sing leaves so much up for the interpretation of the listener. We played a horrible show in Oakland, [California,] to a lot of people once. We had huge problems onstage, and everything was out of tune. I spent a lot of the set screaming at the floor, and we all agreed it was dark, dark, dark. Walking around afterward, I met an older man who had been at the show and he stopped me, wide-eyed and smiling, to tell me that we made the most angelic music he had ever heard. I was like, "Really? Were we at the same show?" But he was really serious. And I believed him. Ed Masley


Official Website: http://www.dominorecordco.com