ODDSAC

The group is called Animal Collective and they are calling their film ODDSAC, which may just be the most psychedelic thing you’ve never seen, yet. At this point, you’ll have to wait until June to snag a glimpse of AC’s highly anticipated visual album.

Since the collective’s January ’09 release of Merriweather Post Pavilion they have been the topic of much discussion and even heated debate in both the indie and pop worlds. Merriweather made it’s way to the top of charts throughout the world and won the acclaim of many reputable publications. Spin Magazine and Entertainment Weekly named the album the best of the year and Rhapsody had the album #7 on its “Alt/Indie’s Best Albums of the Decade” list. The album made it to #2 on the United States Independent Charts and peaked 13^th on the Billboard Top 200 in turn solidifying the album and group’s place in contemporary music.

Their newest project, which actually isn’t all too new with 4 years in the making, has been held under such tight wraps that no footage other than the trailer they put out has been leaked. The first public showing of the heavily experimental visual album was at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The reaction there was so great that they chose to take the film on the road before its DVD release.

Only 14 locations on Earth were chosen for special screenings of the film, one being Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. Hampshire was founded in 1970 with the intention of experimenting with alternative forms of education. Many great contemporary American thinkers have come from Hampshire where the class size average is 16 students and is notorious for the overall use of psychedelics. A perfect place to show one of the most in depth art films made between some of the biggest leaders in pop art of our time.

The breeze was light on that Monday night and the campus was full of buzzing activity. Having missed out on tickets to the 9 P.M. showing, I was left to wait it out and attend the second showing at 11. Upon walking up to the lecture hall, students could be seen stumbling out of the doors with immense grins with the laughter of hyenas. Written in large, multi-color chalk letters was the title of the film, it’s cost and that there would be a Q&A afterwards. $15 was the cost and the tickets were only available to students of the five colleges (Hampshire, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst and UMASS Amherst).

The room that we sat down to watch ODDSAC in was smaller than most high school auditoriums. This was an intimate experience to say the least. Brian Weitz, also known as Geologist and Josh Dibb who goes by Deakin were accompanied by Danny Perez who shot and directed the film using Final Cut for editing would talk after about what we saw. Perez has worked with AC in the past, creating music videos for “Who Could Win A Rabbit” and the recent “Summertime Clothes” off of Merriweather. He got his start working with the NY experimental soundscape artists Black Dice after graduating from NYU for film.

Without ruining the plot (or lack of plot as the artists will be the first to admit) the film literally blew me away.  Parts made me laugh to near hysterics, while others drew me deeply into a trance as seemingly found Magic Eye puzzles rotated infinitely into an abyss of twisted vocal manipulations. There is a certain flow to the film where no breaks occur that distinguish scene from scene. It’s most definitely a trip.

Animal Collective

In talking about the film after it was over, the audience in a drunken stupor from what we had just witnessed, they talked deeply about the lengthy process that went into making ODDSAC. They assured us that the title was not a secret code for something or held any significance. Perez was originally supposed to do a tour documentary of Animal Collective, but they agreed that’s not what they really wanted to do. The idea of the visual album came up in passing and Perez started drawing ideas he had. All of the visual aspects of the film came from Danny’s head, no matter how bizarre.

The way the album was created it has no true consistency. It wasn’t that the sound was recorded and then the film aspect was modeled after the soundscapes or vice versa. It took a mixture of both; a lot of passing of ideas and much time to review what had been done while revising. This creates a complex relationship between the sound and the moving pictures because neither was initially set in stone allowing it to meld together as a whole.

Brian Weitz has said that this piece is the most experimental thing they have ever done, which might be something of an understatement. It’s quite an understatement though coming from a member of the group whose album Sung Tongs took the New Weird America scene by storm because of the way they took on folk music. I’d have to agree with Geologist on this one though, personally owning every one of AC’s albums and many of their rare live sets over the past decade. It’s pretty out there.

We can hope for a June release to DVD of ODDSAC in all its beauty. It will definitely be a hot item for this summer and has the potential to become a cultural masterpiece of our age. That is, once it hits the torrent sites as all things are in this crazy, mixed up world of ours. Luckily, that world brings about such beauties never before fathomable.

You’ll definitely want to check out ODDSAC this June to see what it’s all about. Not everyone was as fortunate to catch a preview at the ultra-tiny Hampshire College, but it’s definitely worth 54 minutes of your time.

By Caleb Hiliadis

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