Album Review| Down There by Avey Tare

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Dave Portner (aka Avey Tare) has always been the abstract center of Animal Collective, he tends to favor weird oscillations over most, his observations are disheveled and often incomplete and after listening I think most will have a new appreciation for his contributions to one of our generations more influential and interesting bands. That said Down There is entirely it’s own entity, and reviewing this was quite challenging, considering my un-relenting love and partial unwillingness to potentially over analyze something so dear to my heart. That said, Enjoy!

Down There is un-doubtably a strange piece of work, frequently shape-shifting, with each additional listen I was compelled to conclude that I’d come to appreciate the album as a whole or that Mr. Portner had totally lost any cohesiveness towards the middle of his very short album. The best analogy that comes to mind is a sandwich, one that is made with really delicious bread, the encasing if you will, but in-between the bread is some foreign meat that your not so sure about (it’s not alligator meat either, i’ve had that and it’s pretty good).

Down There begins with “Laughing Hieroglyphic”, a nearly 7-minute long disfigured letter to his ex-wife. A organ loops drunkenly as Portner gradually brings forward a few synths and a watery oscillator. The opener is a uniquely original form of poetry, Portner vomits scrambled puzzled pieces that become increasingly understandable as the song progresses; serving as a brilliant translation of Portner’s gradual understanding of his relationships crumble. Most importantly “Laughing Hieroglyphic” never becomes overly personal or in other words un-relatable. And as jumbled as it all is, the universality of “And when I get fucked up I do the best to make myself not fuck up again and my heart and my lungs do, why can’t I do the same for everyone I love too?” is all that more poignant when Portner yells it.

Following the opener Down There begins to scramble itself, turning what I saw as effective interludes into uneventful full-length tracks and taking potentially strong sounds and amputating them before they readily bloom. “3 Umbrellas” directly follows “Laughing Hieroglyphic” and attempts the more personal approach of its predecessor but ultimately misses. “3 Umbrellas” begins much like an Animal Collective track in the sense that it opens with a minimalistic sound coupled with lyrics at center-stage, the difference being that as the lyrics become exponentially gargled they never become accompanied by a fuller instrumentation. And while it’s unfair to expect AnCo like build-ups its not unfair to criticize “3 Umbrellas” for it’s un-eventful melodies in lieu of sub-par lyricism, especially when placed next to the inventive structuring of “Laughing Hieroglyphic”.

After the glitch-hop-py “Oliver Twist” “Glass Bottom Boat” slowly evolves into a haunting piano solo that evaporates before it’s really been explored, (I really thought you had something going there Avey). Luckily the album gets back on track with a dubbed-out progression on “Ghost of Books” that strikes gold where “3 Umbrellas” missed, employing a pulse-altering synth that tours you on an auditory wave throughout the much alluded swamp. The gradual introduction of sparkling synths and break-beats carry the track and purposefully allow Avey to punctuate his voice with more gooey oscillations that compliment his lyrics to perfection.

Before the albums harmonious close Down There struggles more with sporadic transitions, hazily drifting on “Cemeteries” to only somehow end up back at a densely packed dub sounding “Heads Hammock”, the 180º turns truly yielding any adhesion. Down There closes wonderfully beginning with heartfelt and beautifully written lyrics on “Heather In The Hospital”. Here Portner paints a very melancholy scene as a syncopated drum pattern nearly breaks through “Glass Bottom Boat”‘s revived piano into a Caribbean melody. This melody being the unifying piece that finally ties all of Portner’s efforts throughout the album to connect loneliness to thoughtfulness. As Portner sings his inner thoughts of paranoia the melody picks up and he becomes gradually more comfortable with his thoughts, “Someones in the room, listening to me. No one’s in the room, it must just be me.”, and then the glazed rhythms of “Lucky 1” unmask themselves to end Down There at a more con-jointed and optimistic sounding spot than where it started.

Part of me wonders if all of my qualms with Down There were for some reason intentionally orchestrated by Portner. Listening to Down There I can’t help but feel that if he’d put portions of the album in a different order it’d all mesh more conveniently, but then again the sheer perfection of the transition from “Heather In The Hospital” to “Lucky 1” leaves me wondering if Portner was trying to say a little more?

mp3-”Laughing Hieroglyphic” by Avey Tare
mp3-”Heather In The Hospital” by Avey Tare
mp3-”Lucky 1″ by Avey Tare