Animal Colletive - Water Curse EP

Back in February of 2007, I joined the RYM community. I would have never believed how much a web page could affect me. RYM and its users have introduced me to a lot of artists, genres, albums, movements and time periods. From Miles Davis, dating back 50 years, to the Indie music which I wouldn’t have been able to discover through MTV.
It is especially about this last genre/movement that I’m going to talk about. I can’t exactly remember which band brought me into this, but last year I got my hands on three albums:

-Mirrored by Battles: It just blew my mind, considered it to be the future of music and the most original concept I had ever heard.
-Boxer by The National: I thought this was the cleanest and most conventional of these three.
-Strawberry Jam by Animal Collective: My favourite, the most consistent and an original sound.

Of these three bands, the only one to have released any studio material after last year releases is Animal Collective. Following their last album trend of releasing an EP which is between their latter and their next album, not just in chronology, but also in sound and concept.
The opening title track is the best of the four on this EP. It introduces us to the aquatic psychedelic sound that makes up the recording.
After this track, the following tracks begin to slow down, slow pace that is taken to the extreme on the middle section of its second track, “Street Flashes”, where the bands gives the impression of being underwater, and then reaching the surface towards the track’s end.
Even though none of the tracks on this EP are too far away from Strawberry Jam’s sound, “Cobwebs” is the most closely related to it.
Finally “Seal Eyeing” contains a more prominent piano part and hears as a nice way to end this sneak peak.
One of the trademarks of Animal Collective’s sound, without mentioning Avey Tare’s voice, is their numerous and good use of weird sounds, effects and sampling. Water Curses is no exception, containing elements that go from airplanes or typewriters, to creepy clown-like laughs, and most important, the bubbles and wave effects that give the EP that concept it seeks to reach.
The truth is I’m not familiar with EPs, in fact the only I can remember hearing before this is Tremolo and Caribou. I don’t know if it is against the standard rate & review rules to rate an EP with 5 stars. Anyway, this is no such case. Water Curses is a nice example of the Collective’s experimental sound. It will be a good way to start for a new-hearer, fans of the band would certainly love it, and to neutral people, like me, you will find it shot enough to keep you entertained



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