MIND INVERSION

      As I sit in my new favorite cafe here in La Crosse, The Root Note, I day dream about May the 20th. It’s the day Animal Collective, along with opening act Grouper hit the main room at First Ave. It’s a concert that sold out like country music shows do at the Xcel Center. So yes, anticipation is brewing.

May 18 @ Royal Oak Music Hall, Royal Oak Michigan: SOLD OUT

May 19 @ Riverside Theater, Milwaukee Wisconsin: Tickets (!)

May 20 @ First Avenue, Minneapolis Minnesota: SOLD OUT

      So the fact that Animal Collective and NPR teamed up last night to stream the band’s set form the 9:30 Club in Washington DC was all the more reason for me to get excited. It was essentially a look inside the band’s tour, a two hour romp through the Baltimore trio’s best work. And you’re more than welcome to stream the entire thing for yourself at their archives, or even just check out the set list. 

Stream Animal Collective live @ the 9:30 Room, Wash. D.C.

      You would think that selling out nearly every venue on their tour was enough, but Animal Collective have now officially released and officially sold out of The Animal Crack Box vinyl set that everyone and their mother have been salivating over. The triple-vinyl box set collects various live tracks and unreleased material from the bands tribal years from 2000-2003 period. If you happened to have $92 laying around and happened to be on the internet and happened to stumble upon the first blog that wrote about it (Pitchfork) you might have been lucky enough to load the page fast enough to get a copy. Oh well I guess, The rest of us poor souls will just have to wait for the MP3s to come leaking out of some dude’s basement. 

      Until that time though, you can check out the new track that Panda Bear, Avey, and Geologist have been playing live. It’s working title is “Bleed” and can be had in a handy MP3 form already thanks to Collected Animals. “Bleed” seems extremely unpolished still, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the track still evolve even over the length of this tour. The track sounds a little too mythical, a little too slow, but the Avey and Panda melodies are a nice treat none-the-less.  It’s not as good as the other new live track, “What Would I Want Sky”, but it shows once again the talent that these three men have at crafting music seemingly on the fly. Grab it below:

Animal Collective – “Bleed”