Cows On Hourglass Pond - Avey Tare: Review
Avey Tare
is the pseudonym for David Portner, the Maryland based experimental and psychedelic pop artist who founded legendary indie group Animal Collective. Along with Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist they created some of the most mind bending and genre melting experimental folk music in the early 2000's before transitioning into the indie pop world seamlessly with 2009's Merriweather Post Pavillion. While other members of the group have released excellent solo material such as Panda Bear's Person Pitch and Deakin's Sleep Cycle Avey Tare doesn't really have a marquee moment of solo work. Since Animal Collective has been in somewhat of a rut of material and Avey's previous solo effort was met with mixed reviews, it's hard to quantify what to expect out of Cows.
Review By Lavender:
I love Animal Collective, and not just in the way most modern indie kids do. Merriweather Post Pavillion is great but the Animal Collective well goes so much deeper. Albums like Sung Tongs and Feels represent a very different early iteration of the band, and the project debut work Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished is a personal favorite of mine that recently landed on my Ten Albums That Take Multiple Listens To Understand piece here. Understanding his role in the experimental arm of Animal Collective is important to diving into his solo discography as most fans introduction to an Avery Tare ideology in album format was on 2007's Fireworks. For an Animal Collective project it is very different from what came before and after, but the influence of Avey is all over it. Avey's 3 solo albums before this one represent a gambit of reactions for me, none of which have been overwhelmingly positive.
In the wake of MPP I was excited for any content from the collective and it caused me to praise Avey's 2010 solo record Down There maybe a bit more than I should have. Retrospectively even at around 30 minutes the project seems like kind of a chore and some of my favorite moments haven't aged as well as you'd hope they would. My favorite solo effort from Avey came on 2014's Enter The Slasher House from the AnCo, Dirty Projectors and Ponytail crossover group Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks. It was a short but sweet collection of refreshingly zany tracks, many of which including its excellent lead single Little Fang have stuck with me to today. 2017's Eucalyptus represents one of the most inessential points of the Animal Collective universe to me, long drawn out and overworked tracks pulling from natural sounds in basically the groups formula but in this instance Avey Tare doesn't pull off nearly enough interesting stuff to make in engaging, and I think I may have enjoyed the Essence of Eucalyptus companion remix EP even more. So since it has been a long time since I have been truly wowed by Avey Tare's work my expectations going into Cows On Hourglass Pond are simply to hear something like I've never heard before, whether it's good or bad is to be determined.
Avey Tare uncharacteristically dropped three singles leading up to the release of this project that didn't inspire confidence in its consistency, but did a good job of setting up what the tone would be like. Saturdays (Again) feels like it came out months ago but still cracked January of 2019, and as a song it reminded me a lot of some of the better moments on Animal Collective's 2017 album The Painters and kind of struck me as an indicator of what this project would sound like. Since the album is completely different from anything Saturdays may have indicated I continue to enjoy the song, but it's strange standing out in the tracklist is still a questionable moment. Taken Boy was an incredibly strange pick for a second single as its a much more by the numbers piano ballad than we are used to seeing from Avey. The mix is strangely clean and the song takes a very long time to develop into anything making it one of the most tedious points on the entire project and an even more curiosity inducing pick as a single. And finally another indicator of the albums sonic inconsistencies came along with HORS_ the final single released just before the album came out. The track is a wandering mess of borderline random sounds and Avey's pitched down vocals that comes out way more annoying than coherent. What these singles did best is help me understand what to anticipate this album sounding like, but what they failed to let me know is that it's actually a better project than the singles or my expectations would have indicated.
As a matter of fact the only other song besides the second two singles that I truly didn't enjoy at all was Our Little Chapter, a painfully formless piece with some of the most lackluster instrumentation across the entire project. Chilly Blue is a short song that has a dizzying and distorted instrumental but fades out before it does a whole lot with it, still a unique and interesting moment. And K.C. Yours has moments of forgettable daze as Avey lustfully vocalizes over a nothing instrumental, but even this takes a turn for the better as half the song is full of catchy refrains and tight songwriting ability.
From here on out though it's almost all sunny skies. The album starts off on a very high note with What's The Goodside? a blissful and psychedelic opener that uses its 6 minute runtime perfectly. Building a great progression around some psychedelic haze and strange vocal effects Avey lets you into the album's world on a slow, but very high note. Straight after this is Eyes On Eyes another great track this time one highlighting some natural but fuzzy percussion and a distant but vibrant vocal performance. This ultimately provides some of the catchiest and sharpest vocal moments on the entire project and was the song I couldn't stop coming back to over and over again.
The final two tracks aren't as great but are still welcome editions to the project. Nostalgia In Lemonade hits you with some absolutely overpowering synths but they don't quite stick the landing once the project gets going. Although the lemonade refrain on the hook of this track is another one that I appreciate the production on a lot and couldn't get out of my head. Finally Remember Mayan is a fantastically written and assembled song with some fantastic percussion and catchy refrains that sometimes dips into an indulgent space but never loses the great song at its core.
Despite how much it may have seemed like Avey Tare wanted us all to think this album was going to be bad I actually came out of it feeling positive. The instrumentation across the project never settles down and the huge variety of sounds don't disappoint. Even though some moments feel disjointed there are plenty of good tunes here that make me want to come back and listen again and again. 6.5/10
For more Animal Collective check out my review of Panda Bear's Buoys here.
Review By Lavender:
I love Animal Collective, and not just in the way most modern indie kids do. Merriweather Post Pavillion is great but the Animal Collective well goes so much deeper. Albums like Sung Tongs and Feels represent a very different early iteration of the band, and the project debut work Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished is a personal favorite of mine that recently landed on my Ten Albums That Take Multiple Listens To Understand piece here. Understanding his role in the experimental arm of Animal Collective is important to diving into his solo discography as most fans introduction to an Avery Tare ideology in album format was on 2007's Fireworks. For an Animal Collective project it is very different from what came before and after, but the influence of Avey is all over it. Avey's 3 solo albums before this one represent a gambit of reactions for me, none of which have been overwhelmingly positive.
In the wake of MPP I was excited for any content from the collective and it caused me to praise Avey's 2010 solo record Down There maybe a bit more than I should have. Retrospectively even at around 30 minutes the project seems like kind of a chore and some of my favorite moments haven't aged as well as you'd hope they would. My favorite solo effort from Avey came on 2014's Enter The Slasher House from the AnCo, Dirty Projectors and Ponytail crossover group Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks. It was a short but sweet collection of refreshingly zany tracks, many of which including its excellent lead single Little Fang have stuck with me to today. 2017's Eucalyptus represents one of the most inessential points of the Animal Collective universe to me, long drawn out and overworked tracks pulling from natural sounds in basically the groups formula but in this instance Avey Tare doesn't pull off nearly enough interesting stuff to make in engaging, and I think I may have enjoyed the Essence of Eucalyptus companion remix EP even more. So since it has been a long time since I have been truly wowed by Avey Tare's work my expectations going into Cows On Hourglass Pond are simply to hear something like I've never heard before, whether it's good or bad is to be determined.
Avey Tare uncharacteristically dropped three singles leading up to the release of this project that didn't inspire confidence in its consistency, but did a good job of setting up what the tone would be like. Saturdays (Again) feels like it came out months ago but still cracked January of 2019, and as a song it reminded me a lot of some of the better moments on Animal Collective's 2017 album The Painters and kind of struck me as an indicator of what this project would sound like. Since the album is completely different from anything Saturdays may have indicated I continue to enjoy the song, but it's strange standing out in the tracklist is still a questionable moment. Taken Boy was an incredibly strange pick for a second single as its a much more by the numbers piano ballad than we are used to seeing from Avey. The mix is strangely clean and the song takes a very long time to develop into anything making it one of the most tedious points on the entire project and an even more curiosity inducing pick as a single. And finally another indicator of the albums sonic inconsistencies came along with HORS_ the final single released just before the album came out. The track is a wandering mess of borderline random sounds and Avey's pitched down vocals that comes out way more annoying than coherent. What these singles did best is help me understand what to anticipate this album sounding like, but what they failed to let me know is that it's actually a better project than the singles or my expectations would have indicated.
As a matter of fact the only other song besides the second two singles that I truly didn't enjoy at all was Our Little Chapter, a painfully formless piece with some of the most lackluster instrumentation across the entire project. Chilly Blue is a short song that has a dizzying and distorted instrumental but fades out before it does a whole lot with it, still a unique and interesting moment. And K.C. Yours has moments of forgettable daze as Avey lustfully vocalizes over a nothing instrumental, but even this takes a turn for the better as half the song is full of catchy refrains and tight songwriting ability.
From here on out though it's almost all sunny skies. The album starts off on a very high note with What's The Goodside? a blissful and psychedelic opener that uses its 6 minute runtime perfectly. Building a great progression around some psychedelic haze and strange vocal effects Avey lets you into the album's world on a slow, but very high note. Straight after this is Eyes On Eyes another great track this time one highlighting some natural but fuzzy percussion and a distant but vibrant vocal performance. This ultimately provides some of the catchiest and sharpest vocal moments on the entire project and was the song I couldn't stop coming back to over and over again.
The final two tracks aren't as great but are still welcome editions to the project. Nostalgia In Lemonade hits you with some absolutely overpowering synths but they don't quite stick the landing once the project gets going. Although the lemonade refrain on the hook of this track is another one that I appreciate the production on a lot and couldn't get out of my head. Finally Remember Mayan is a fantastically written and assembled song with some fantastic percussion and catchy refrains that sometimes dips into an indulgent space but never loses the great song at its core.
Despite how much it may have seemed like Avey Tare wanted us all to think this album was going to be bad I actually came out of it feeling positive. The instrumentation across the project never settles down and the huge variety of sounds don't disappoint. Even though some moments feel disjointed there are plenty of good tunes here that make me want to come back and listen again and again. 6.5/10
For more Animal Collective check out my review of Panda Bear's Buoys here.
