Pitchfork

Animal Collective have followed each of their last three albums with a short companion EP closely related to its predecessor. 2005's Prospect Hummer echoed the bent acoustic folk-pop they'd explored on Campfire Songs and Sung Tongs; it also featured British folk legend Vashti Bunyan on vocals, who was then just returning to public consciousness. While Prospect sounded terrific from the start, 2006's People, which followed Feels, felt more like what it was-- a chance to release a few not-quite-as-good songs out that didn't make the cut. Now comes the Water Curses EP, which contains three tracks from the Strawberry Jam sessions and another recorded at Brooklyn's Rare Book Room studio.

The opening title track ranks among the best songs the band has written in purely pop terms, alongside "Who Could Win a Rabbit", "Grass", and "Fireworks". The production is busy with snippets of what could be a gurgling bong, creaking floorboards, and laser-like effects, but it's mixed beautifully and remains light on the ears despite its density. With its de-emphasis on identifiable instrumentation (guitars are there, but they're way down in the mix), "Water Curses" seems unbound by genre or era, and serves as a nice reminder of how many risks Animal Collective is taking sonically these days. It's mostly electronic and it's pop, but it doesn't have anything to do with the 1980s, which in itself makes it unusual; it sounds like something no other band working right now could have made.

Among the other three tracks, nothing else is nearly so direct melodically. "Street Flash", which has been a staple of live sets for a while now, begins slow with dubbed-out scraping noises and distant samples of loud vocalizations. The opening section is pure mood, as Avey Tare sings in his lower register to assorted sounds placed against a wide backdrop of silence, but then his voice is subjected to an underwater effect, some gentle piano enters, and things grow progressively thicker. The baby-like screams that he alternates with sweet crooning aren't going to win the band any new fans (they feel somewhat out of place in this more subtle track), but it's still an effective slice of ambience.

"Cobwebs" is like a mid-tempo and more song-like variation on some of "Street Flash"'s ideas; where the latter gets by on impressionistic drift, "Cobwebs" is like a slow march through a bucolic landscape, the clackity and deliberate percussion occasionally giving into a surging chorus. There's again plenty of intriguing sonic detail, and the track sounds especially good on headphones; with its bright, tactile production, the whole record is very visual, sometimes feeling like a series of weird scenes glimpsed through the glass of an aquarium. The aquatic motif returns on record closer "Seal Eyeing", which is anchored by a few notes of melancholy piano, and nicely wraps up some of the production ideas as they fold in the sound of the traditional instrument on a pretty, evocative ballad while maintaining an air of strangeness.

Though ostensibly a collection of outtakes, Water Curses feels like its own thing, with a consistent mood and an identifiable palette. The record also finds the band becoming increasingly comfortable with integrating unusual sounds and textures into their music. Where they once used synths, delay pedals, and crude electronic percussion in an abstract, noise-oriented ways, they're now discovering how to make odd sounds work with proper songs. You can hear them becoming more experimental and more accessible simultaneously. While Water Curses is plenty enjoyable on its own, it also sets you dreaming about where Animal Collective will go next.