Animal Collective

Animal Collective don’t merely venture into the wild, they embody it. Since the early 2000s, the Baltimore-born band has been marching to its own primal rhythm, creating fantastical sound collages that consistently push the possibilities of pop music. First making waves in the NYC underground, childhood friends Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Geologist (Brian Weitz), and Deakin (Josh Dibb) performed and recorded in various incarnations, releasing a mercurial mix of albums, including 2000’s psych-noise sprawl Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished, 2004’s freak-folk fantasia Sung Tongs, and 2007’s avant-pop spree Strawberry Jam. All that far-out experimentation would come together on 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, an electrified psych-pop masterpiece bursting in bright color and swirling in cavernous harmonies, centered on instant indie classic “My Girls.” The album gave a big boost to the band’s profile, and that only inspired them to get weirder. With each release, they continue to gleefully dance on the line between madness and ecstasy—through the anxious chaos of 2012’s Centipede Hz, the manic density of 2016’s Painting With, and the lightly sweetened pop of 2022’s Time Skiffs.