Noah Lennox ( Panda Bear), who was busy at the time in Europe, was unable to attend, so David Portner (
Avey Tare), Brian Weitz (
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, alt ...
), and Josh Dibb (
Deakin) prepared material for the upcoming performance.
The two-night installation, which took place on March 16–17, 2018, included early versions of the songs "Prester John" and "Royal and Desire".
In summer 2019, all four band members rented a house together in
Leiper's Fork,
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to ...
to develop material for a forthcoming record. It was here that they workshopped songs for nearly a month, eventually writing upwards of 20 tracks.
On a subsequent tour, in October 2019, they debuted 13 new songs in total, including 8 that would end up on ''Time Skiffs''. After the fall tour, the group prepared to enter the studio in March 2020.
However, the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...
put a halt to these plans, and the band was forced to push back their recording sessions.
None of the members were living near each other,
and Weitz and Lennox had family responsibilities which preoccupied them.
As they waited, all four members worked remotely on the EP ''
Bridge to Quiet
The discography of Animal Collective, an American experimental pop group, consists of 12 studio albums, 4 live albums, 2 video albums ("visual album"), 12 extended plays and 19 singles.
The group consists of musicians Avey Tare (David Portner) ...
'' (2020), which was released in July of that year.
After being content with how the EP came out, the band, at the persistence of their manager,
began to remotely record what would become ''Time Skiffs'' at their individual home studios, spanning August 2020 through the fall.
The recording process was not without its hiccups, as half of the 2019 songs were set aside for later recording, since they relied more on a live performance dynamic.
The songs ultimately chosen for ''Time Skiffs'' were more easily able to be recorded to a
click track, making remote recording possible.
Still hesitant about the remote recording process, the band remained unconvinced of their progress until Panda Bear entered a professional studio to re-record drums for the first single "Prester John". Deakin said, "That was kind of another big moment too, once we went and did that and, and re-tracked those drums and brought them in, then things start to feel really, really solid. "Prester John" was probably the first one that felt like it was really coming together, sonically, in a way that we all felt like was special enough to justify the
emote recording
An emote is an entry in a text-based chat client that indicates an action taking place. Unlike emoticons, they are not text art, and instead describe the action using words or images (similar to emoji).
Emotes were created by Shigetaka Kurita ...
process".
The band continued to record ''Time Skiffs'', incorporating several instruments that they had rarely used before, including Weitz playing the
hurdy-gurdy
The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a v ...
and the
taishōgoto
The , or Nagoya harp, is a Japanese stringed musical instrument. The name derives from the Taishō period (1912–1926) when the instrument first appeared. It has also become naturalized in East Africa, often under the name ''Taishokoto''.
Hi ...
. The isolation of the pandemic slowed down the recording process, with the band spending weeks mulling over decisions through e-mail and texts that normally would take seconds in the studio.
''Time Skiffs'' was mixed by
Marta Salogni and mastered by
Heba Kadry.
Music
Domino
Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also ca ...
's press release compared the album's sound to the band's seventh album ''
Strawberry Jam'' as well as their "inchoate early days".
Domino called the songs "love letters, distress signals, ''
en plein air
''En plein air'' (; French for 'outdoors'), or ''plein air'' painting, is the act of painting outdoors.
This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein air' painting ...
'' observations, and relaxation hymns, the collected transmissions of four people who have grown into relationships and parenthood and adult worry ... rendered with Animal Collective's singular sense of exploratory wonder".
"Prester John" was the result of two songs, one written by
Avey Tare and the other by
Panda Bear, interwoven together. Ostensibly named after the medieval figure
Prester John, the song features "rich vocal harmonies" accompanied by a deep bass groove and "twinkling and atmospheric" synths throughout, ending in an ambient sound collage.
"Walker," written primarily by Panda Bear, is a tribute to
Scott Walker, who died in 2019, around the time of the song's conception.
"Strung with Everything" runs nearly seven minutes; ''
Stereogum
''Stereogum'' is a daily Internet publication that focuses on music news, reviews, interviews, and commentary. The site was created in January 2002 by Scott Lapatine.
''Stereogum'' was one of the first MP3 blogs and has received several awa ...
'' called it "as woozy and splashy as you'd expect from Animal Collective, but the melody is fairly sharp and straightforward, and it's got a bit of a playful
Paul Simon thing going on".
Release
''Time Skiffs'' was released on February 4, 2022, on
Domino Records Domino Records may refer to:
* Domino Records (1916), American producer of early phonograph, from 1916 to 1917
*Domino Records (1924), American record label, from 1924 to 1933
* Domino Records (Canada), produced by the Compo Company in the 1920s a ...
. Animal Collective teased the album though cryptic photos sent as
private messages to fans of the band on
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
,
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news news aggregator, aggregation, Review site#Rating site, content rating, and Internet forum, discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") subm ...
, and
Discord. Put together, those images form the back cover of the album, complete with track listing and Domino logo.
On October 20, the album was formally announced by the band and the label, along with the release of lead single "Prester John" and its music video. The band will support the album with a North American tour scheduled for March 2022. A second single, "Walker", was released on December 13, 2021.
A third single, "Strung with Everything", was released on January 19, 2022.
A fourth single, "We Go Back", was released on February 1, 2022.
Critical reception
''Time Skiffs'' was released to positive reviews from contemporary music critics. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an
average
In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...
score of 76, based on 25 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".
Aggregator
AnyDecentMusic?
AnyDecentMusic? is a website that collates album reviews from magazines, websites, and newspapers. Primarily focused on popular music – covering rock, pop, electronic, dance, folk, country, roots, hip-hop, R&B, and rap – albums are ad ...
gave it 7.4 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.
In the review for
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...
, Tim Sendra claimed that "Instead of regressing or stepping away from the edge when their sound grew too unhinged, the band continues to evolve in unforecastable directions on ''Time Skiffs''. It's an especially lucid reading of the sound they've been perfecting for over two decades at this point, and one that adds a human warmth to a group that's long been defined by their otherworldly nature."
Daniel Dylan Wray of ''
Uncut
Uncut may refer to:
* ''Uncut'' (film), a 1997 Canadian docudrama film by John Greyson about censorship
* ''Uncut'' (magazine), a monthly British magazine with a focus on music, which began publishing in May 1997
* '' BET: Uncut'', a Black Enter ...
'' gave ''Time Skiffs'' a positive review, writing that the album possesses a "cohesive assuredness" that previous ''
Centipede Hz'' and ''
Painting With'' lacked. He especially praised "Prester John" as a "breezy yet irresistible piece of pop-art" reminiscent of
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...
's output around the time of ''
Another Green World'' release.
Of the album, ''
Mojo'' Stevie Chick wrote that the band's avant-garde leanings work "in service of songs that still play profoundly with structure but are, perhaps unexpectedly, coherent and melodically focused".
Antonio Poscic of ''
The Wire
''The Wire'' is an American crime drama television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The Wire'' premiered on June 2, ...
'' was mixed in his assessment. He wrote that "while 2016's ''Painting With'' was a jumble of interesting ideas lacking direction", ''Time Skiffs'' is "a paint-by-numbers
indie pop
Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and su ...
affair". He enjoyed the opening track "Dragon Slayer", calling it a "dangerously concentrated dose of nostalgia".
from ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'' was also reserved in giving his praise for the album, stating that "''Time Skiffs'' isn't a straightforward album by most artists' standards: that its patchworks of sound, lengthy instrumental interludes and slowly uncoiling song structures represent Animal Collective dialling things down says more about their past oeuvre than anything else. As it is, it feels like an act of quiet consolidation rather than a breakthrough, aimed squarely at existing fans, unbothered by grabbing anyone else's attention."
Meanwhile, Nadia Younes from ''
The Skinny'' felt let down by the level of creativity offered by the album: "For a band renowned for their experimentation it doesn't feel like much new ground is covered on ''Time Skiffs'' and even after years of waiting, by the end of the album you're left wanting more."
Track listing
* "Cherokee" contains a sample of "To You, Sweetheart, Aloha", as performed by
Alfred Apaka
Alfred Aholo Apaka, Jr. (March 19, 1919 – January 30, 1960) was a Hawaiian singer whose romantic baritone voice was closely identified with Hawaii between the late 1940s and the early 1960s. Alfred Apaka was arguably the foremost interpreter o ...
& his Hawaiians, written by
Harry Owens.
Personnel
Credits adapted from the press kit for the album.
Animal Collective
*
Avey Tare – vocals (all tracks), bass guitar (1–4, 6–8), autoharp (1), electric guitar (1, 2, 6, 9),
Elektron synthesizer (2, 3, 6, 7, 9),
Moog synthesizer
The Moog synthesizer is a modular synthesizer developed by the American engineer Robert Moog. Moog debuted it in 1964, and Moog's company R. A. Moog Co. (later known as Moog Music) produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014 ...
(2), percussion (2), pedal steel guitar (4), wooden
xylophone
The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in t ...
(5, 7),
Waldorf Pulse synthesizer (5, 6), melodica (6), samples (6), fretless banjo (6), recorder (9)
*
Deakin –
Nord synthesizer (1–4, 6–9), vocals (1, 3–9), acoustic guitar (4), electric guitar (4), piano (4, 9), bass guitar (5)
*
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, alt ...
–
Eurorack synthesizer (all tracks),
Iris synthesizer (1–7, 9), samples (1–6, 9),
Nord synthesizer (1, 4), lap steel guitar (1),
Moog synthesizer
The Moog synthesizer is a modular synthesizer developed by the American engineer Robert Moog. Moog debuted it in 1964, and Moog's company R. A. Moog Co. (later known as Moog Music) produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014 ...
(2, 7, 8),
hurdy-gurdy
The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a v ...
(2, 3, 5–8), gong (2, 4, 6), field recordings (3, 7),
taishōgoto
The , or Nagoya harp, is a Japanese stringed musical instrument. The name derives from the Taishō period (1912–1926) when the instrument first appeared. It has also become naturalized in East Africa, often under the name ''Taishokoto''.
Hi ...
(6, 7, 8)
*
Panda Bear – drums (all tracks), vocals (all tracks), samples (4, 6)
Technical
* Animal Collective – recording
* Joaquim Monte – drum recording
* Bernardo Centeno – assistant drum recording
*
Marta Salogni – mixing
*
Heba Kadry – mastering
Artwork and design
* Avey Tare – collages
* Rob Carmichael (SEEN) – design
Charts
References
Further reading
*
*
{{Authority control
2022 albums
Animal Collective albums
Domino Recording Company albums