Album Impressions: Pullhair Rubeye by Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan

As a fan of animal collective, I expect each new release they put out to throw me a curve ball, after all they are an experimental pop band. This is especially true of their various side projects which at times steer more towards the experimental than the pop. The latest side project release on their Paw Tracks label was recorded by Avey Tare, who on Animal Collective's last album Feels emerged as the band's primary singer and songwriter, and his wife Kria Brekkan (aka Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir) who was a member of the band múm.

Every song on the album was composed and recorded with Avey on acoustic guitar and Kria on piano and alternates between surprisingly straightforward folk songs and somewhat droning instrumentals. What's unusual about this album is that the couple decided to flip the tracks backwards and release them that way. Although using backwards tracks is certainly nothing new in the realm of experimental music, what makes this such an unusual choice is that these songs were obviously not composed to be played backwards, and the couple seems to have just made the choice to release the album backwards on a whim.

In the pre-internet era of popular music a band could perhaps release a backwards album and perplexed fans would either have to take it or leave it. The relationship the internet has allowed fans to create with this music, and the resulting fan backlash against the backwards release is perhaps more interesting than the music itself. Many fans had already heard bootleg versions of songs from the album that the couple had performed live. Writer Mark Richardson on indie rock taste-making website pitchfork media awarded the album a 1.0 on their arbitrarily precise to the first decimal point 1 to 10 rating scale, stating that the backwards versions reduced the album to a novelty ambient soundscape barely worth listening to. Avey Tare can even be found defending the album on a fan message board. Of course computer technology has also enabled fans to easily re-reverse the songs so that they play forwards again. In fact, I downloaded the album and the tracks had already been flipped for me.

So, now that I've explained the context of this album, what's my opinion? Well, although listening to the intended backwards version is sort of cool for a little while I greatly prefer the forwards version. Would I buy the album in it's current form? No. Hopefully these songs will be released at some point in the future in their original form, and Avey Tare has stated that it is a possibility. Then again, these songs don't really need to be released forwards, as surely any fan who is nerdy enough to want to hear them is smart enough to find a way to acquire this album and reverse it. In any case, I'm glad technology has enabled me to listen to these songs however I choose.

What does it sound like? Well, I could describe it to you, but when people do that they usually end up sounding really pretentious. Instead you should listen to this mp3 of the song "Lay Lay Off, Faselam":



Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan - "Lay Lay Off, Faselam" (forwards)