The Stool Pigeon music newspaper

Tonight is weird for two reasons. Firstly, the venue is a carpeted, 1000-capacity ballroom with dining tables at the rear and a ceiling studded with sound mirrors. Secondly, I’m unable to zap myself into that zoned-out air pocket I normally locate for Animal Collective shows. And because the venue’s charm works its way into your psyche, and because the band are stunning, I guess the lack of connection is down to something wrongly wired in my head; a relaxation failure. Which is frustrating, since seeing Animal Collective live requires you to lose control. It’s about channelling your thoughts towards not thinking; about closing your eyes in order to really see.

Still, backlit by strips of rainbow and flanked by, um, two skeletons in taffeta gowns, the three old school friends from Baltimore modestly blink their way in. Unhindered by instruments, frontman Avey Tare freely explores the stage, rolling on the soles of his sneakers, microphone cupped in cusped hands. And man, the dude can scream: each round of barks is as unexpected and unprecedented as the last, each one a singular thrill ripping gullies into the fabric of Panda Bear’s satin vocals and Geologist’s warped beats. ‘We Tigers’ sees him navigate an almost-gobbledegook staccato, flitting like an afflicted stray, while ‘Who Could Win A Rabbit?’ hinges on chaos as he pesters and gouges his drumskin. He and Panda Bear speak in vowels with a symbiosis that’s sometimes conspiratorial, sometimes argumentative but always intuitive and, where Panda Bear’s solo records swim through an aqueous pulse with liquid grace, the spirit of his home clan lies more with elements of earth, wind and fire. Barrelling into frenzied climaxes, they unleash sounds like fights between parched, skinny prowlers for the only prey.

And because they never play the same set twice, we’re treated to a version of ‘Fireworks’ spliced with ‘Essplode’, the spirograph chorus of the former consistently delayed by the sleepy pace of the latter. Sadly, the kids whooping along to ‘Peacebone’’s jilted squeaks mar our enjoyment - not that I’ve got a problem with people having fun, but there aren’t that many people who can deliver odd, squiggly vocals like Avey Tare, and the drunk students of Manchester ain’t any of them. Nevertheless, the sucked-out intro of ‘Leaf House’ circles in for a finale that’s frenetic, urgent and epileptic. Never has this group sounded more impatient, or more in control. Even the dead human remains in prom dresses loved it.

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