Psychedelic Sounds in the Spiral Palace

Psychedelic Sounds in the Spiral Palace

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/34121/psychedelic-sounds-in-the-spiral-palace/

By Jonny Leather
Published: March 15, 2010

NEW YORK ­ When the Guggenheim announced a few weeks ago that it
would hold an Animal Collective performance in its rotunda, the
band's rabid fan base quickly bought up all of the tickets, forcing
the museum to add a second performance. In an era when museums are
working hard to connect with a younger audience by bringing in
experimental, of-the-moment bands, it would seem that the Guggenheim
had selected the perfect project.

At previous concerts in Frank Lloyd Wright's spiral palace ­ such as
Yeasayer's show a while back ­ the focus was largely on the music.
But Animal Collective, working in collaboration with visual artist
Danny Perez, positioned their performance as an artwork in its own
right ­ and consequently expectations ran high. The Guggenheim's
rotunda, most recently home to Tino Sehgal's remarkable "This
Progress," has also hosted large­scale installations by Matthew
Barney, Daniel Buren, and Cai Guo-Qiang in its rotunda over the past
few years. Animal Collective and Perez had chosen a high-stakes space
to debut their piece, Transverse Temporal Gyrus.

With their Merriweather Post Pavillion album, which was released last
year, Animal Collective rose into an elite class of bands with both
extensive commercial and critical appeal, managing to marry
experimental electronic psychedelia with Beach Boys '60s pop
production and hooks. In recent years, the band has shown a
determination to stretch their songs out into lengthier soundscapes,
while the lights and stage design of their concerts have also
gradually become more elaborate and concept-driven. Transverse
Temporal Gyrus, in many ways, was the culmination of an experimental
direction the band has taken, fusing visual and sonic elements into
an immersive, totalized environment.

Visually, Transverse Temporal Gyrus began with the Animal Collective
trio sitting in a semicircle in the museum's atrium, outfitted in
dark robes and horned white masks that bore a more-than-passing
resemblance to the rabbit in Donnie Darko. Each member ­ motionless
except for slow, staccato movements that brought to mind animatronic
displays ­ was stationed atop an amorphous sculptural throne that
bore a round glowing screen playing imagery that swirled like the
magma of a lava lamp. A row of clear, brightly-lit stalagmites glowed
in front of them; behind them, an amorphous white glacier stood with
a fragmented spectrum of color cutting across it. The entire rotunda
was lit with bright shades of magenta, blue, and green.

All of the music in the performance was pre-recorded, leaving the
musicians to play the role of eerie MCs, appearing to orchestrate the
soundscape from their otherworldly perches. The sounds encompassed
the space, often circulating around the rotunda in a spiral through
the speakers, flowing in uninterrupted waves throughout the entirety
of long, three-hour performance. From time to time it built toward
the frenetic freak-outs that fans of the band have come to expect,
but it never quite broke free of the underlying moody psychedelia.

Legendary avant-garde band the Residents have always been a major
influence on Animal Collective, and while experiencing Transverse
Temporal Gyrus it was impossible to overlook the strong resemblance
of the performance to the older band's revolutionary 1979 record
Eskimo. In Animal Collective's hands, the experiments of that album
were brought into a more futuristic context, with the fragmented
blips and bleeps of the computer age mingling with the formless,
ambient sounds of nature. The involved costumes and stage design also
echoed the mise-en-scène of past Residents tours, declaring a similar
ambition.

Transverse Temporal Gyrus, in short, was not a typical concert. Given
its free-floating atmosphere, it may have been best experienced with
hallucinogenic aids ­ something the Guggenheim seemed to acknowledge,
serving absinthe at the concert's bar. It could be a fine first step
for Animal Collective to progress as something far more interesting
than a simple rock band, and it succeeded in a modest way to bring
the realms of art and experimental pop more closely together ­ in the
Upper East Side institutional realm, at least ­ into the unified
sphere where performers like Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, and Sonic
Youth have long worked.

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