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Are you the type of person who is always tapping your foot, singing along to a song in your head? Are you the first to reach for the AUX cord in your friend’s car? If so, we want you to work for U92!

We’re accepting applications this week, May 16-20, for DJ, Media, and Marketing staffs. Pick up an application at the station. We’re located in the Mountainlair behind JACs.

By U92 Asst. Music Director Nick Koban-Hogue

Animal Collective, a neo-psych band from Baltimore Maryland, is not an unfamiliar name in the music community. 10 studio albums dating back to their pre-formation experimental piece Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished have left a big impact on the scene. Their most recent effort, Painting With, looks to continue the legacy of almost unanimous critical acclaim, albeit in a slightly different way.

In the past, the group has used music to play with our souls and force us to partake in the feelings they are trying to convey through sound. Their early works are a bit more abrasive than the Animal Collective that reached early college radio and indie success. These albums brought just as much emotion as later pieces, but in a way that turned many listeners off of their sound.

After those original three works, their style began to consistently change and shift based on the underlying themes of the record. Painting With does precisely that, by employing similar instrumentation to a brand new mood in their discography, one of sheer happiness. Their sound always tends to mirror their personal lives, and over the course of their career the band members have gone through a lot of changes. Lead members Panda Bear and Avey Tare are now 37 and 34 respectively. They’ve moved past their old experimental selves, and many people, especially longtime fans, fail to recognize that.

This album is distinctly happy. The record opens with a consistent and fun, jumpy beat that can’t help but to draw a smile and a little dance from the listener. Other tracks head in stranger directions than the singles from the album, but their bright, shimmery sound resonates through the dense layers of samples. Tracks on this album force you to look back on your own life in bright, shimmering bliss and ask you why you didn’t always see the world that way. Animal Collective have asked themselves that question enough to fill up this beautiful 42 minute sonic journey.

Many critics have written this album off as being another flop, akin to their 2012 album Centipede Hz. Painting With doesn’t shy away from using abrasive samples and sounds; however, this record is meant to be enjoyed while in a similar state of self-induced bliss as the writers were experiencing. If listeners go into this album expecting the dark and haunting instrumentation of some of their more brooding records, they will be sorely disappointed. Animal Collective has never been the kind of band to dwell on their successes or care about whether or not the music they put out is successful at all. This album doesn’t care if you like it or if it’s your least favorite of their releases; it simply aims to make you happy.

Recently, I was lucky enough to experience one of their live performances in Columbus, Ohio. Hearing these songs performed by an unusually peppy Avey, Panda, and Geologist served to forward the message of this record even further. During their live performance, not only did they play many of the tracks from Painting With, but they also had reformed versions of many other songs from their back catalog. These included tracks from Feels, Spirit They’re Gone… and Merriweather Post Pavilion. Hearing these brighter, happier reimaginings of their earlier songs begged the question, what if they had been this happy for their entire career? What would their earlier albums sound like if they were put through this lens? Here’s praying for a Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Returned sometime in the not so distant future.

8.5/10

-Station of the Year

-Music Director of the Year (Emmi McIntyre)

-Specialty Music Director Of The Year (Cody Roane)

-Most Creative

-Small Station, Big Idea

-Biggest Improvement