Avey Tare: Down There

Avey Tare
Down There
Rating: Grrrr

My friend in music geekdom Matthew has long been a huge Animal Collective fan, but apparently I was immune to any of their charms. He would just roll his eyes (well virtually, since he lives in California), and mutter that in time I would like them. Damn him. With last year's Merriweather Post Pavillion, I finally "got" them. It was a warm, liquidy batch of upbeat electronic songs that always put me in a great mood when I listened to it. Whether my new found appreciation for Animal Collective's artistry translates back to their more experimental early works is yet to be seen, but I no longer turn up my nose in distaste when their name is mentioned.

While the members of Animal Collective take a break from recording and touring, Dave Fortner, the principal songwriter, releases his first solo album under the moniker Avey Tare. Once the songs unfold it definitely sounds like Animal Collective, however, it is a much darker, denser work. Apparently, Fortner wrote the album as a song cycle in response to 2 years of what he called hell: the breakup of his marriage, the death of his grandmother, and his sister's cancer diagnosis. The first thing that comes to mind when listening to Down There is how murky and swampy the songs and the mix are. Most of the songs begin with snippets of processed conversation samples, which slowly begin to insinuate themselves in your head like schizophrenic voices.

You can definitely feel Fortner's struggles throughout the record; his lyrics, while not despondent, are achingly sad and searching for answers. "Laughing Hieroglyphics" finds him at a loss as to what is happening to him:

"And hold me I've been sad for days
The light will change its gifts every hours and hour
And the same things haunt me what's haunting you"



Or the song to his sister, "Heather In The Hospital," which provides a devastatingly impressionistic account of the day to day battle she endured.

"To see you wrapped up in your messy gown
With secrets to celestial bodies speak as you sleep without a sound
And it brings me down
Machines of modern magic keeping folks above the ground
A nurse's scribbling pad, a shadow shape, a mother going down
And it brings me down"



There are moments of brightness in the murky haze. The almost funky drum program squelch of the radio-friendly "Oliver Twist"



or the chiming synths and sing-song voices of "3 Umbrellas"



Of course the majority of the album is dark and deliberate. The middle is comprised of three, somber tracks that form the basis for the record and give it its heart and soul, the journey into his personal hell. "Glass Bottom Boat," an almost instrumental passage with processed and treated sounds of water, beckons the listener "I can get you there, just step into my boat," sounding like Charon leading the dead to the underworld. Bleeding into the dubby, loping "Ghost of Books," almost advocating the peacefulness of death with it's constant refrain "I went away to a ghostland, and it felt like a perfect dream." Culminating in the gorgeous and tender "Cemeteries," a moving meditation on what it means to be dead.



Although the darkness of Down There can almost be impenetrable at times, Fortner knows how to lighten the mood at the right times, and to always offer hope. "Lucky 1" ends the album on a more positive note:

"Fly off from harder days
Today feel like the lucky one"



Down There is a difficult album to get into at first. The dense programming and general murkiness of the production and the themes can be off-putting, but given the chance, the record insinuates itself and you find you cannot easily shake its power. Down There is highly recommended for fans of challenging electronic music.


Rating Guide

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top albums of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and peaks one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been trimmed or polished.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.