Merriweather Post Pavilion

This article explains the music album. For the amphitheater, see Merriweather Post Pavilion (Amphitheater) .

Merriweather Post Pavilion
Animal Collective studio album
Publication (s)	January 6, 2009
admission	February 2008
Label (s)	Domino Records
Format (s)	CD , 12 "vinyl
Genre (s)	Indie rock , neo psychedelia , experimental pop
Title (number)	11
running time	54:42
occupation	Avey Tare Panda bear Geologist Deakin
production	Animal Collective , Ben H. Allen
Studio (s)	Sweet Tea Recording Studio, Oxford
chronology Water Curses 2008 Merriweather Post Pavilion Fall Be Kind 2009
Single releases March 23, 2009 My girls June 29, 2009 Summertime clothes November 9, 2009 Brother Sport

Merriweather Post Pavilion is the eighth studio album by the American experimental band Animal Collective . It was released on Domino Records in January 2009 .

The album is named after the Merriweather Post Pavilion concert venue in Columbia, Maryland . At almost 55 minutes, the album is the band's longest album since their debut album Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished . The plan to perform in the actual Merriweather Post Pavilion after the album was released had to be abandoned.

Merriweather Post Pavilion is considered one of the best albums of 2009 by the press.

backgrounds

Animal Collective live, 2007

After the band recorded Strawberry Jam in January 2007 , guitarist Deakin (Josh Dibb) decided to take a break from the band due to unknown private reasons. So the band wrote a couple of new songs that could be played without a guitar. The band used samplers as main instruments , inspired by Panda Bear's first solo album Person Pitch . The group first presented nine of these songs in May 2007 and toured with them in 2008. Most of these songs were ultimately featured on the album.

History of origin

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Merriweather Post Pavilion   DE 79 01/23/2009 (1 week)   UK 26th January 18, 2009 (4 weeks)   US 13 02/07/2009 (13 weeks)

To record the eighth studio album, Animal Collective sought the help of Ben H. Allen as a co-producer. In an interview with the Baltimore City Paper , Allen stated that the band chose him "because of my work with Gnarls Barkley " and they wanted "my basic expertise". According to band member Brian Weitz (Geologist), the band was initially drawn to it, but was also enthusiastic about Allen's diverse musical tastes: "He seemed to be someone who technically just knew how to create suburban hip-hop, but he was also open to other styles. Knowing that he was involved in a lot of Bad Boy Records stuff from the 1990s was pretty impressive for us. " The band made a few conference calls with Allen on Skype in January 2008 and began recording at the Sweet Tea Recording Studio in Oxford, Mississippi on February 1, 2008.

During the recordings, privacy was the top priority for the group and a significant factor in choosing the "Sweet Tea" studio. Allen: "During the whole month we were working on the album, just me, my assistant and the band were there. No phones or computers ... it's a small town, we were in the south, nobody knew who they were . It was work non-stop. " The studio also offered other advantages. Dave Portner (Avey Tare) felt that Sweet Tea was the "most atmospheric studio" he had ever been in: "It feels like you're making music in a living room that just happens to have a Neve 8038 mixer in the room . " Weltz also stated that the studio's large mixing room was ideal for the sample-heavy album: "We wanted to do most of the tracking in the same room as the sound engineer." At Merriweather Post Pavilion , the band wanted to put a live sound on the album, like on Strawberry Jam . Still, the recording techniques for the two albums were very different, says Noah Lennox (Panda Bear): "We made the two [albums] with totally different approaches." On Strawberry Jam they worked with a group atmosphere and recorded everything at the same time, on Merriweather ... they tracked "practically every sound individually on its own track, so that we could completely control every sound while mixing".

Artwork

Akiyoshi Kitaoka (here a photo from 2006) created optical illusions on which the cover of Merriweather Post Pavilion is based.

“The picture of the cover on this page isn't even close to big enough. Find it online, as big as possible, and stare at it very carefully! See how the scope of your eyesight shifts and waves, no matter how hard you try to focus the mosaic-like pattern - almost alive, making it impossible to get the picture in your head! "

- Emily Mackay in the album review on NME

The optical illusion on the cover is based on the work of the Japanese psychologist Akiyoshi Kitaoka .

The album's download coupon card contained an explanation of the album title with the first vinyl edition of the album:

“Merriweather Post Pavilion is an open air concert space in a plaza called Symphony Woods in Columbia, Maryland. It was designed by Frank Gehry in the 1960s and they have had concerts there from 1967 to the present day. We often went to concerts there when we were growing up and have formative memories of times we spent on the grass. For most of the time we've played together, in Animal Collective and the years before, we've tried to make music that would make for a great outdoor listening experience. Both in name and location, Merriweather Post Pavilion represents this for us. "

reception

The initial response from the press was very positive. Despite being released in January, many critics hailed it as one of the best albums in 2009. Slant Magazine gave the album five stars out of five. Stephen Troussé of Uncut wrote that the album should be regarded as one of the "American milestone albums of the previous century". Andrzej Lukowski of Drowned in Sound wrote, "Is Merriweather Post Pavilion the flawless album it should be? All in all, I'd say it's pretty damn close." Negative reviews were rare, but Michael Patrick Brady of the Boston Phoenix wrote that the album "lacks the playfulness and spontaneity that tied so many listeners to this group". He gave the album 2.5 out of 4 stars.

In late 2009, Merriweather Post Pavilion was named the best album of the year by both Pitchfork Media and Tiny Mix Tapes .

Track list

1. In the Flowers - 5:22
2. My Girls - 5:40
3. So Frightened - 5:14
4. Summertime Clothes - 4:30
5. Daily Routine - 5:46
6. Bluish - 5:13
7. Guys Eyes - 4:30
8. Button - 3:53
9. Lion in a Coma (Animal Collective, Lathozi Mpahleni Manquin Madosini) - 4:12
10. No More Runnin - 4:23
11. Brother Sport - 5:59

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Chart sources: DE ( Memento of the original from April 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. post pavilion UK US 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Cummings, Raymond. " Merriweather Post Pavilion Behind-The-Scenes With Ben H. Allen ( Memento of the original from May 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ". Baltimore City Paper . January 15, 2009. Retrieved November 13, 2010. 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Doyle, Tom. " Animal Collective: Recording Merriweather Post Pavilion ". Sound on sound . May 2009. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
4. ↑ O'Connell, Sharon. " Animal Collective on 'Merriweather Post Pavilion' ". Time out . January 6, 2009. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
5. ↑ English Original:
   The picture of the sleeve on this page is nowhere near big enough. Go look it up online, as big as you can, and stare at it very hard. See how, as you try to focus on any one part of the tessellated pattern, the sections in the periphery of your vision shift and undulate, almost alive, making it impossible to pin the image down in your mind.
6. ↑ Mackay, Emily. " Merriweather Post Pavillion review" . NME . January 9, 2009. Retrieved November 13, 2010.
7. ^ Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009): Reviews . In: Metacritic . CNET Networks, Inc. Retrieved March 8, 2009.
8. ↑ Keefe, Jonathan: Slant Magazine review: Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion . In: Slant . Retrieved March 2, 2013.
9. ↑ Stephen Troussé: Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion. www.uncut.co.uk, accessed March 2, 2013 . 
10. ↑ Lukowski, Andrzej: Review: Animal Collective / Merriweather Post Pavilion . In: Drowned in Sound . Retrieved March 4, 2009.
11. ↑ Michael Patrick Brady: The Phoenix> CD Reviews. In: The Boston Phoenix. Archived from the original on August 4, 2013 ; Retrieved March 4, 2009 . 
12. ↑ Larry Fitzmaurice: Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion in Staff Features 2009: Favorite 50 Albums of 2009, 50 Albums that Defined 2009 for TMT. In: Tiny Mix Tapes. Archived from the original on December 19, 2009 ; accessed on May 2, 2016 . 
13. ^ Pitchfork: Staff Lists The Top 50 Albums of 2009