Black Dice and Animal Collective have been blowing their effects-pedal loads together for years now, and everything about them matches up (even their acronymns: A and C correspond with B and D in the alphabet).
They used to almost sound like one giant band back in the Hollindagain days, and AC’s Paw Tracks label is disseminating Black Dice’s music to the public. While treading a different path career-wise, especially considering the Collective’s mainstream surging of late, both acts remain of a peculiar breed.
They used to almost sound like one giant band back in the Hollindagain days, and AC’s Paw Tracks label is disseminating Black Dice’s music to the public. While treading a different path career-wise, especially considering the Collective’s mainstream surging of late, both acts remain of a peculiar breed.
Their curious sense of synergy was fully afloat at the Boulder Theatre; like the old friends they are, they filled in each other’s weaknesses, the first coming across as a short, compact, tubby, consistent thimble to the brain and the other a flailing, conceptual experience-as-art explosion.
Black Dice strode up to the front of the stage, only taking up a 12-square-foot chunk of real estate — I might be off here — and used the small space to absolutely molest the crowd with their pummeling, powerful, corrosive, explosive, sweaty, ready-get-set-confetti music.
A dude at the merch table tried to get me ready for this. He said a Black Dice show hits the chest. Hard. “Like a Mogwai show?” I asked? “Exactly! Exactly …” he said. Upon hearing this I tensed up a tad because Mogwai tore my poor ears to absolute shreds three years ago.
The din of Dice was actually much more forgiving, their bass fluent but less back-heavy, their treble manageable. I noticed a few people covering their ears in front of me, but it was out of a lack of understanding for the power-tools-on-ice showcase more than problems with the sheer volume. I tried to buoy their spirits, giving them a big smile and thumbs up every so often, as if to say, “Yes, I know it hurts at first but it’s absolutely necessary. We’ve all been through this with Black Dice.”
During all of this the NYC trio were using their bass throb to cut through the crowd like a tank, a battering ram or a tank with a battering ram abutted to its front section. And what business does that Copeland brother have playing a guitar? I had NO idea … And Aaron Warren, who danced the night away and tapped his many drum triggers on the right … I had no idea he yelped in this manner.
While a few too many people texted on their iPhones I wondered about the dance-ability of this music. Rhythm? Check. Atmosphere? Check. Build and climax? Check.
So why is dancing such an uncommon thing at Black Dice shows? You get the obligatory two-to-three heavyweights up front, sweating up a storm, a random flailer or two, and that’s IT. Thing is, I was practically jumping out of my pants by the time “Ultra Vomit Craze” stuffed its bass riffing down my throathole. The groove-infested tune from latest record Repo, “Ultra Vomit” packs just the right amount of junkyard noodling into its bass pattern interface, and its beat is as straight as a tune from pretty much any non-Black Dice DFA release.
As the show wound down — in all I heard at least one selection from Broken Ear Record and Beaches and Canyons, a few from Load Blown; the rest was allll Repo — I became increasingly frustrated by the lack of appreciation in the crowd. Don’t they know this is sorta what Animal Collective used to sound like?
And then AC take the stage and I realize how much things have changed. Their performance was breathtaking, but there were several lulls and a few out-and-out misstepse I wasn’t prepared for.
I’ll just get those out of the way. First, the rendition of “Slippi” was a disaster, a slow, automated take on perhaps the most organic-sounding song in the Animal Collective canon. Even the chants at the end didn’t quite match up with the digi-beats, leaving the Here Comes the Indian standout limp as a pin-pricked balloon.
A few of the expanded versions of Merriweather Post Pavillion tunes didn’t fly either. It’s one thing to look at a song with a different lens, it’s another altogether to inject two pounds of heavy cheese into an already-slow-moving beast. I could have done without the 15-minute sections of singing the same refrain as little else goes on, and the ultra, ultra, ULTRA-stretched-out version of “Banshee Beat” made me realize how much I’ve failed to appreciate how good the original version is.
And now the positives, which were ample. First, the sound was crisp, bouncy and heavy. Panda Bear and Avey Tare melded their voices together seamlessly, and their presence on percussion was a delight when they managed to tear themselves away from their samples and riff-raff.
Particularly dazzling was a tune I didn’t recognize from any of their albums or even from any of the bootlegs I’ve heard. It contained a trance-inducing beat much busier than anything on Merriweather P-P, much more of a skittering variety than the dub-centric stuff AC has vended of late, and ended as a sort of prog freak out, a lightning rod of a portend of things to come (can’t wait for that new album!) and an inspiring concert moment to boot.
Other hightlights shined like the Animal Collective unit we’ve all come to expect. At one point during a M P-P extension Avey picked up a guitar, Panda picked up his sticks and a gorgeous prog-lite ensued, the sort of stuff you won’t find on ANY AC album, yet it came out as natural as anything else they attempted that night, including renditions of songs they’ve obviously been playing a ton such as “My Girls.”
That their excursions were as exhilerating as their on-the-level, proper songs (such as “Brother Sport,” a true highlight with several detours) is a testament to the original aims of this now-trendy collective: getting someplace they’ve never been before.
I can certainly say I was transported to two places I had never previously been before on June 2, and I would like to go back in the near future.
