b-uncut

Oddball Art Fusion: Animal Collective and Danny Perez Create Visual Music with ODDSAC

// April 6th, 2010 // b-scene // b-uncut

The other night I attended the LA premiere of Animal Collective’s “visual album” ODDSAC.  Like the rest of the world, based on the 26 second trailer and after 4 years of making, I had no idea what to expect.


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Most bands would stay clear of creating audible appeal harmonised with visuals.  However these guys certainly have the artistic integrity to give it a shot and they got an extra boost with the help of their friend artist/director Danny Perez.

The feature, while utterly bizarre and far from perfect, is entirely captivating and well worth the hour long ride for a peek into the band’s creative madness. It is bass-heavy and droning, filled with weird costumes, scary monsters and pleasing colour palates when the melodies kick in. Much like Animal Collective shows, there are very long kaleidoscopic interstitials of repetitive sound, serving as undulating provocations and exhalations between the more songy-songs.

Recently, on March 4, The New York’s Guggenheim hosted Animal Collective and Danny Perez on a site-specific performance piece that changed the museum’s rotunda into a kinetic, psychedelic environment called Transverse Temporal Gyrus — featuring original recorded music composed specifically for the event along with video projections, costumes, and props, rendering the band members and performers into intense, visual abstractions.  According to the band, this installation piece was the “physical form” that the film would take if it were to become an object.

Although ODDSAC is no masterpiece of new cinema, it definitely stretches the boundaries of logic, narrative and terror and is worth having a look at!