Gli Animal Collective sono in costante movimento.
L'essenza del loro suono emerge dai loro live che non sono mai gli stessi ma si evolvono continuamente. Erano due anni che suonavano le canzoni di SJ dal vivo in una forma o in un altra. Adesso, se andate a vedere un live degli AC queste canzoni sono già il passato: stanno già suonando, in una forma o in un altra, le canzoni del prossimo album. Le registrazioni ufficiali sono quindi necessariamente delle approssimazioni di una camaleontico animale che non sta mai fermo e perciò spesso sfuocate. Belle ma sfuocate. In fondo ci sono fotografie sfuocate molto belle, é una tecnica fotografica con una sua dignità!
Strawberry Jam li vede nel tentativo di mettere a fuoco meglio il loro sound attuale che è più tendente al pop rispetto al già song-friendly "Feels". Eliminate infatti le lunghe digressioni oniriche degli album precedenti, l'album riduce ogni suono, vecchio e nuovo, al formato canzone. Il risultato è più che convincente e funziona prima di tutto grazie alla maggiore varietà del menu sonoro proposto. L'impressione è quella di un gioioso carnevale dove diversi stimoli e colori vengono unificati a formare un tutto coerente e dotato di senso. In effetti la spinta verso il formato canzone non sembra dovuta a una banale voglia di commercializzazione, bensì all'esigenza di costruire album più coerenti e scorrevoli che in passato. SJ è l'album che si ascolta meglio come un tutt'uno, dall'inizio alla fine, l'album che ha la scaletta migliore nella scelta della sequenza, l'album che insomma funziona meglio nella sua totalità.
Si parte con una filastrocca psichedelica, "Peacebone", una roba che io intendo come uno scherzo riuscito, la "Bike" o la "When Im 64" degli AC, con le dovute differenze di sensibilità musicale e stilistica sia chiaro. Il cuore pulsante dell'album sono i pezzi come "For Reverend Green" e "Fireworks" che definiscono una nuova direzione musicale, per certi aspetti più tradizionale rispetto alle folli ricerche del passato, ma non pacificate, non banali, anzi offrono sguardi disturbati sul mondo del pop con le urla deliranti di Avey Tare a sporcare la limpida melodia di "Reverend Green". Ci sono poi le composizioni chiaramente influenzate dalla recente, ottima esperienza solista di Panda Bear, e cioè l'eccellente "Chores" e la conclusiva "Derek", due piacevoli aggiunte allo spettro sonoro degli AC. C'è anche la voglia di riproporre una versione aggiornata e corretta del vecchio sound: "Cuckoo Cuckoo" è rumorosa e caotica ma è un caos al servizio di un ordine interno, di un autorità superiore che è appunto la coerenza del disco, il bene del tutto, che in passato veniva sacrificato spesso per lasciar briglia sciolta ai singoli brani, liberi di andare dove gli pareva.
Un bel disco insomma, per chi non ha bisogno che i propri artisti preferiti facciano sempre le stesse cose pur di restare duri e puri. Un disco che è una tappa di un percorso sempre più aperto e difficile da prevedere. Un disco che si muove come un equilibrista su di un filo sottile per cercare di soddisfare il desiderio di evolversi senza tradirsi. Ci riesce.
Elenco tracce testi e video
01 Peacebone (05:13)
Bonefish.
Bonefish.
A Peacebone got found in the dinosaur wing
Well I've been jumpin’ in all over, but my views are slowly shrinking
I was a jugular vein in a juggler’s girl
I was supposedly leaking the most interesting colors
While half of my fingers
Are dipped in the sand
You progress in letters but you're used to cooking broccoli
The other side of takeout is mildew on rice
And an obsession with the past is like a dead fly
And just a few things are related to the old times
Then we did believe in magic and we didn't die
It's not my words that you should follow it's your insides
You're just an inside
Adjust your insides
You're just an inside
Bonefish.
I bet the monster was happy when we made him a maze
Cause he don’t understand intentions he just looks at your face
I'll bet the bubbles exploded to tickle the bath
All the birds are very curious all the fish are at the surface
With half of me waiting for myself to get calm
I'm like a pelican at red tide
I'm a corpse I'm not a fisherman
A blow out does not mean I will have a good night
Chorus
Bonefish.
Chanting/screaming
Bonefish.
I start in a hose and I end in a yard
When I feel like I’m stealing I can keep myself from hearing God
Only the taste of your cooking can make me bow on the ground
It was the clouds that carved the mountains
It was the mountains that made the kids scream
Oh well she bore all her parts but she never was found.
You think I'll carve a path through New York
And be an artist but are you anything
Then you find out you can't ask a baby to cry
Chorus
Inside
Inside
Inside
Inside
Inside
Inside
Inside
Peacebone
Bonefish.
03 Chores (04:30)
If I say too bad
I'll take a lesson in my head
I've got to have till I am dead
Now I've got these chores
And I'm never going to hurt no one
And when at last
My work is done
I only want the time
To do one thing that I like
I want to get so stoned
And take a walk out in the light drizzle
At the end of the day
When there's no one watching
It's not going to happen.
04 For Reverend Green (06:34)
"Whether or not you believe it, you are
listening to true recordings of bigfoot
creatures in their natural environment. We know
these are naturally-- "
From one moment to a next
Reading in the papers to know what's best
Sometimes you don't know yourself
Eating loads of vitamins for your health
From one moment to a next
Red negativity in the street
Maybe it's the earth, maybe it's the heat
A baby on the bus smiled at me so easy
Now I think it's alright we're together
Now I think that's a riot
Now I think it's the best you've ever played it
Now I think that's a riot
Now I think it's alright to feel inhuman
Now I think that's a riot
Now I think it's alright, we'll sing together
Now I think that's a riot
A running child's bloody with burning knees
A careless child's money flew in the trees
A camping child's happy with winter's freeze
A lucky child don't know how lucky she is
From one moment to a next
A thousand wasted Brooklyners all depressed
The ins and outs of supper's chest
He'll only be a friend if he touches your breast
From one moment to a next
A shifting in the plates of what you ingest
From sugared tits to honeyed pests
Bulimic vegetarian wins weight contest
Now I think it's alright we're together
Now I think that's a riot
Now I think it's the best he ever played it
Now I think that's a riot
Now I think it's alright to feel inhuman
Now I think that's a riot
Now I think it's alright, we'll sing together
Now I think that's a riot
A running child's bloody with burning knees
A careless child's money flew in the trees
A camping child's happy with winter's freeze
A lucky child don't know how lucky she is
This one's for Reverend Green...
05 Fireworks (06:50)
Now it's day, I've been trying
To get that taste off my tongue
I was dreaming of just you
Now our cereal, it is warm
Attractive day in the rubble
Of the night from before
Now I can't walk in a vacuum
I feel ugly, feel my pores
It's the trees of this day
That I do battle with for the light
Then I start to feel tragic
People greet me, I'm polite
"What's the day?" "What are you doing?"
"How's your mood?" "How's that song?"
Man it passes right by me
It's behind me, now it's gone
And I can't lift you up cause my mind is tired
It's family beaches that I desire
A sacred night, where we'll watch the fireworks
The frightened babies poo
They've got two flashing eyes and they're colored why
They make me feel that I'm only all I see sometimes
I was eating with a good friend
Who said "A Genii made me out of the earth's skin"
But in spite of her she is my birth kin
She spits me out in her surly blood rivers
All the people life lurking
In dominions of a hot Turk dish
If the elephants are reaching for our purses
Then meet me after the world with the shivers
"What's the day?" "What are you doing?"
"How's your food?" "How's that song?"
Man it passes right by me
It's behind me now it's gone
And I can't lift you up cause my mind is tired
It's family beaches that I desire
That sacred night where we watched the fireworks
They frightened the babies and you know they've got two
Flashing eyes and if they are color blind
They make me feel that you're only what I see sometimes
And I can't lift you up cause my mind is tired
It's family beaches that I desire
That sacred night where we watched the fireworks
They frightened the babies and you know they've got two
Flashing eyes and if they are color blind
They make me feel that I'm only all I see sometimes
08 Cuckoo Cuckoo (05:42)
How I lost my boy
How I lost my boy
How I lost my boy
How I lost my boy
The king in I died
He kept floating past my eyes
And singing his songs
Life was good now death's all wrong
Cause you can't feel a thing
No heart flutters in late spring
You just drift and pray
For sun kissed golden days
I can't hold what's in my hand
Don't do any good to say this isn't what I planned
Little kids sliding down on the steel park slide
Little kids can't play with things that have died
Sometimes all I want is one favorite song
Two to three minutes doesn't seem so long
Where's my mom I want to hold her tight
She's so far away from crowded nights
I'm going cuckoo cuckoo
We're all going cuckoo cuckoo
I'm going
I said please stay
You can see me, don't go away
I can't see the landscape
Please describe its amaranthine haze
It's odd where I am
There are people you're not like them
They just look away
For rain quenched golden days
My tears quench five feet of lawn
I just creep I cannot yawn
People gonna come and people gonna cry
He just woke and ate and died
Don't try and erase what you have done
Put your fingers in a mouth and kiss it if it wants
Where's my friend I want to hold him tight
He's so far away from mountain light
I'm going cuckoo cuckoo
We're all going cuckoo cuckoo
I'm going
I can't hold what's in my hand
Don't do any good to say this isn't what I planned
Little kids sliding down on the steel park slid
Little kids can't play with things that have died
Sometimes all I want is one favorite song
Two to three minutes doesn't seem that long
Where's my mom I want to hold her tight
She's so far away from crowded nights
I'm going cuckoo cuckoo
Well I'm going cuckoo cuckoo
I'm going
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