Crate Digging is a recurring feature in which we take a deep dive into a genre and turn up several albums all music fans should know about. In this edition, Animal Collective’s Avey Tare shares his picks.
Animal Collective member Dave Portner — A.K.A. Avey Tare — is still a staunch believer in the album. “Hearing a full record doesn’t seem to be the most modern way of listening to music anymore, listening all the way through… but it’s still an important thing to the way I relate to making music and making records,” he tells Consequence over Zoom.
Avey Tare is particularly excited to chat about the magic of full albums as he gears up to release his fourth solo album, 7 ‘s (out Friday, February 17th). The album, which he recorded in Asheville, North Carolina during the pandemic with close collaborator Adam McDonald, is yet another psychedelic odyssey from Avey Tare. Though it was recorded during a period of significant uncertainty, 7’s is the sound of him raking through his imagination with style and playfulness, seeming both insular and extroverted at the same time.
Even though 7’s is comprised of — you guessed it — just seven songs, there’s a great deal of majesty revealed in listening to the album in full. But the album’s homespun grooves are also still (mostly) suitable for the dance floor; even the album’s more meditative tracks, like the 9-minute epic “Hey Bog,” bubble up like lava, exposing fascinating rhythmic choices and sticky melodies.
In celebration of the release of Avey Tare’s new album 7’s , Consequence caught up with the Animal Collective musician to get his picks for 10 albums he thinks everyone should own. More specifically, Portner has selected “10 albums that make him dance,” including classic picks from Bee Gees and Moodymann, to more contemporary choices from Kylie Minogue and KG & Uniiqu3.
Pylon – Gyrate
I feel like when I first got into it, it wouldn’t have maybe necessarily jumped out to me as a dance record. I guess I would have likened it more to a punk or post-punk record. But Pylon’s lead singer Vanessa Briscoe Hay has been a big influence on me singing-wise as well, so I gotta throw that one in there. I feel like the energy that she brings to Pylon is so crucial to making me be active and thrash about or dance about, and she has a great kind of scream-y snarl from time to time, which I definitely took note of early on in getting into singing, especially with Animal Collective. And then the tracks, they merged into some like dub-y territory, dub-y disco, which I really like a lot.
Essential Track: If I were putting this into a DJ set, I’d probably throw the song “Danger” into there. It’s a little bit slower of a BPM, but it has a nice disco groove and I really like slide-y guitar. It’s got some dubbed-out vocals, which I like a lot and it’s just a nice kind of “bring it down” track but keeps the groove going.
