When you think of Animal Collective, you inevitably think esoteric jam sessions, cracked pop for the fixed-gear set, miner's helmets, and footwear. Though the latter isn't currently connected with the band of Baltimoreans, whose fan base may or may not only own anything other than Teva sandals and moccasins made of the skin of organic Bison.

But the sneaker world will know them by the trail of their paw tracks next March, when the band of Baltimoreans deliver The Tobin, designed by Animal Collective's Avey Tare (real name: David Portner) and presumably not named after the Ninja Tune trip-hopper. Released in a partnership with apparel firm Keep, pre-orders are available now, with orders arriving with cassettes filled with previously unheard tunes. Ideal for that special connoisseur of outmoded technologies in your life.

All proceeds from the product will benefit the Socorro Island Preservation Fund, an nonprofit that seeks to protect the Mexican island's fragile marine ecosystem of sharks, dolphins, turtles, manta rays, and a winter population of 1,200 humpback whales. The fund's central goal is to protect the island from being  exploited by illegal shark fisherman. (It's comforting to know that the band's charity work is as abstruse as its creative pursuits. Apparently, Doctors without Borders is too derivative.)

The band will also join esteemed peers Dinosaur Jr., No Age and Joy Division as bands with their own lines of sneaks. The trend was pioneered by rappers like G-Unit, Nelly, Pharell, Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z, who have sported their own ugly sneakers at one time or another. Expect to see Panda Bear, Geologist, on the cover of Kicks next April.

— Jeff Weiss

Photo: Avey Tare-designed shoes from Keeps. Credit: Courtesy Keeps.

In the strange ecosystem of Animal Collective, Panda Bear is the difficult one. That’s saying something for a guy in a band with barely a phonetically discernible lyric in its long catalog of tongue-wagging acid jams. But while co-frontman Avey Tare supplies a lot of the melodic heft that kicked the band onto the Billboard charts last year with “Merriweather Post Pavilion,” Panda Bear (Noah Lennox to the government) brings the tangles of synthetic samples, errant noise blasts and the woozy harmonies that make the band’s albums immersive worlds all their own.

His solo breakthrough “Person Pitch,” a cracked take on Beach Boys bliss run through a beatmaker’s hall of mirrors, was Pitchfork’s favorite album of 2008, and expectations are simmering for its followup due later this year. The minimalist drum patter of the first single “Tomboy” gave a hint at its direction, but we talked to Lennox from his home in Lisbon, Portugal, (where he relocated after stints in Baltimore and New York) to hear more about his unusual knack for making drippy psychedelia sound like pop hits in anticipation of his headlining set at the FYF Fest this weekend.

How has living in Lisbon affected what you’re interested in pertaining to your solo career, considering you’re pretty isolated from your band?

It’s definitely forced me to be more responsible, as far as being organized and answering e-mail and things. But it hasn’t really changed how I approach it creatively, even in the band one of us always comes in with a pretty finished foundation and then we work on it from there. I’m a big believer in that your environment affects the music you make, so I’m sure things like walking the streets here affect it, but it’s hard to put my finger on it.

So many people have found a kind of childlike wonder and sense of exploration and repetition in your music. How has raising two actual young children informed that sensibility?

The kids have definitely changed me, not taste-wise necessarily, but I feel a lot more responsibility to do my best with music and cover all my bases.

In the sense they made you more open to commercial success, knowing that a family depends financially on your music?

Not that exactly. I always start by doing exactly what I want to be doing in a kind of creative vacuum, but having a family has really moved me to make that music be as successful as possible. It’s a tough balance to maximize your potential, but to do that you’ve got to tour all the time and I don’t want to leave my family in the dust.

“I’m going to be so sick from this,” said one cringing fan at the L.A. debut of Animal Collective’s new film project, “Oddsac.” “All I’ve had to eat today is wine, beer and candy corn.”

That’s actually a perfectly apt pre-game diet to take in “Oddsac,” a new collaboration between the woozy art-pop band and director Danny Perez. If you’ve ever wished that David Lynch would re-make the videotape in “The Ring” that kills anyone who watches it, “Oddsac” will tide you over until that terrifying day.

Perez and the band produced “Oddsac” commensurately with the Collective’s album “Strawberry Jam” and its 2009 commercial breakthrough “Merriweather Post Pavilion,” but it’s born of completely different impulses than those hook-centric records. The swag for sale in the lobby, which depicts gruesome melting heads and the like, gave a better clue of what was in store. “Oddsac” is a gut-bucket horror flick filleted with Impressionist filters and sound collages that veer from the creepily gorgeous to the indulgently repellent.

“This is an accurate expression of what it felt like to make this,” Perez said before introducing the film. One can’t argue with reasoning like that. And there is a certain coherence to “Oddsac’s” Dario Argento-worthy  slasher sequences and brooding stills of rock fields and empty woods. It takes the chin-scratching logic of a high-camp fright flick like “Pieces” and wrings a kind of YouTube-era pastiche effect from it.

On this five-song EP mostly culled from “Merriweather Post Pavilion” outtakes, Animal Collective's eighth and most successful record from January of this year, David "Avey Tare" Portner, Noah "Panda Bear" Lennox and Brian "Geologist" Weitz continue their delicate balance between creepy-crawly sweetness and bubbling, dark psychedelia. After all, if it didn't mix the uncomfortable with the transcendent, it wouldn't be Brooklyn's Animal Collective.

There's not a cut here that will make anyone think differently about the Baltimore-born outfit but it's a worthy addition to their catalog. "Fall Be Kind" coalesces around the band's sonic staples, leaning particularly toward Panda Bear's dreamy aesthetic: anchoring polyrhythms, nether-worldly textures and amber-warm vocals with a few new tricks thrown in, like the near-syrupy strings that begin "Graze."

"What Would I Want? Sky," which uses the first-ever licensed Grateful Dead sample as a recurring motif, shows off the band's talents at creating near-mystical transitions. It opens with burbling, shivery synths pillowing around tranced-out vocals -- it's a sonic palette that could stir amorous feelings in beluga whales. But before it slips down an oceanic black hole, the song breaks into a warm groove framing Avey's relatable lyrics, punctuated by a taxi driver's scold to "stop daydreaming, dude!"

While Animal Collective's strengths are not usually to be found in their words, the lyrics do lend a welcome humanizing quality to the sometimes-alien ruptures that characterize Animal Collective's sound. "Somehow I feel hopeful," Avey and Panda sing on "Bleed," and it sounds like the lovely truth.

-- Margaret Wappler

Animal Collective
"Fall Be Kind"
(Domino)
Three stars (Out of four)

There’s a fascinating clip floating around the Internet of Malcolm Gladwell discussing Fleetwood Mac. He uses the band to illustrate “the 10,000 hour rule,” which he posits is the amount of dedicated work it takes to become truly great at something. Taken from his most recent book, "Outliers," Gladwell offers up the story of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album "Rumours." He argues that it took the band 10 years, 10 studio albums and a rotating cast of members to ultimately culminate in one of the most popular records of all time.

It’s taken Animal Collective nine years and roughly as many albums to arrive at "Merriweather Post Pavilion," released in January and which has already been heralded by many as the album of the year. While it's not likely to sell as many copies as "Rumours," the impact of "MPP" on modern “indie” music is undeniable. Breaking away from time-worn rock traditions while simultaneously embracing the last 40 years or so of contemporary music, the warm, digital euphoria of "MPP" has galvanized a new generation of fans eager to crown their own set of sonic heroes.

Taking the stage at the Music Box @ Fonda on Thursday night to make up for a January date postponed due to illness, Avey Tare (David Portner), Geologist (Brian Weitz) and Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) put on a fantastic, soul-stirring show that found the band making the most of this moment where all eyes are effectively trained on them.

L.A. tribal heads can breathe easy again: The Animal Collective shows, canceled last weekend due to Avey Tare losing his voice, have been rescheduled, according to the band's representatives. The new dates are Feb 26 at the Music Box @ Fonda and Feb 27 at the Troubadour. Both are still sold out -- Fonda will honor all tickets purchased, and information should be coming Monday regarding the Troubadour's policy. If you can't make it to the Fonda's rescheduled show, contact Ticketmaster. No word yet on the openers.

-- Margaret Wappler

Photo courtesy Takahiro Imamura/Motormouth Media