Animal Collective

+ Atlas Sound

Oran Mor, Glasgow - 20 May 2008

by Charlotte Otter

Raw animal magic

"Keyboards and beats flow around the venue whilst sharp yelping vocals add a primal, guttural feel to the set"

Picture DG Jones

In the dark, sweaty underbelly of Oran Mor, Atlas Sound takes to the stage. Atlanta based singer, songwriter and performer Bradford Cox cuts a lone figure on the stage, surrounded on all sides by towering speakers and doddery keyboards. Lanky and hooded, he mumbles a quick hello before kicking into his opening number, ‘Cold And Golden’. Four epic constructions follow; throbbing guitars build on yearning, half cracked vocals that are then recorded and looped, woven into the gentle tinkling of bells.

It’s a wonderful set, powerful, intense and incredibly beautiful, but marred by the fact that Cox’s has almost no presence on stage. As he stands above the audience, drum machine churning out tinny loops, the audience are oblivious, chatting over the top of the music and ignoring Cox’s stricken figure on stage.
 
What then follows, however, is the total opposite. Animal Collective are a force to be reckoned with and casually strolling on stage, the threesome immediately throw themselves into a mesmerising trance. Keyboards and beats flow around the venue whilst sharp yelping vocals add a primal, guttural feel to the set.

The majority of the tracks performed are from the band's most recent album, ‘Strawberry Jam’, but also featured are crowd pleasers such as ‘Water Curses’, with its shimmering keyboards and the jagged drums and frantic, staccato guitars of ‘The Purple Bottle’.

The two hour set passes far too quickly, pulses of bass bouncing off the walls to announce the trio’s final track, ‘Grass’. With a mess of deafening crashes and shrieks still reverberating around the room, the band leave the stage to heady applause from enraptured fans. It's a far cry from the invisible performance of their support, but fully deserved.

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