Next February, Baltimore’s Animal Collective will release their first album in four years. Following from 2012’s Centipede Hz the new album, Painting With, has been teased by the band since they finished it in July. In a pretty brilliant pr stunt last week, the band had the entire thing played on a loop over the speakers at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, surprising travelers over the very busy Thanksgiving-period in the United States.
Dedicated fans followed cryptic clues posted to social media by the band and associates (including Avey Tare (David Portner)’s cousin, Mat Baetz) until they figured it out, with the band and the official airport twitter confirming that the album was indeed being premiered over the airport’s loud-speakers.
Following the stunt, there is now an official single, a release date, album artwork(s) and a track listing for Painting With. The single, FloriDada is a psych-pop delight, with playful, bouncy beats and layers upon layers of vocals.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Avey Tare said that “Everything seems drenched in reverb these days, and is so distant…In a way, it was a reaction to that.” Geologist (Brian Weitz) added that they had spoken about leaving out any ambient passages in the new material “Even [2009’s] Merriweather Post Pavillion, people were saying was our poppiest record up to that point, but there still were like long, drawn-out passages of drone. With this one we were just like in and out. No long buildups to get to it, no long outros.”
The album will be available in three different covers, each of which features a painting of one of the band members, done by Brian DeGraw. The deluxe LP edition comes with a bonus 7″ featuring two non-album tracks as well as a “zoetropic turntable slipmat” that “animates when activated in part with a strobe light,” according to Pitchfork.
Artwork for “Painting With”
Painting With is out on February 19th, 2016. FloriDada is available on iTunes when you pre-order.
Tracklisting:
1. FloriDada
2. Hocus Pocus
3. Vertical
4. Lying In The Grass
5. The Burglars
6. Natural Selection
7. Bagels In Kiev
8. On Delay
9. Spilling Guts
10. Summing The Wretch
11. Golden Gal
12. Recycling