The eclectic New York group Animal Collective broke through in 2009, after years of underground existence, with a larger audience with the album Merriweather Post Pavilion. That they remain an inscrutable band is evident from this ambitious successor, an album on DVD that can also be viewed and was first shown at the prestigious American Sundance film festival. Oddsac is not a collection of new
… songs with accompanying video clips. Music and image go together proportionally and thus form a continuous (disjointed) video film. Director Danny Perez was influenced by horror films, but his dark images of walls bleeding tar and a vampire decomposing in the morning sun are especially reminiscent of the visual nightmares of David Lynch and the psychedelic occultism of Kenneth Anger. The music ties in with this with uncomfortably grinding and scratching soundscapes from which sometimes a quiet Beach Boys-like song bubbles up. It all looks very artistic, but as a worthy successor to Merriweather Post Pavilion it does not suffice. (MR)more
