Feels

Infobox Album
Name = Feels
Type = studio
Artist = Animal Collective


Released = October 18, 2005
Recorded = March 2005
Genre = Avant-garde music, indie rock
Length = 51:48
Label = FatCat
Producer = Scott Colburn
Reviews =
*AbsolutePunk.net (89%) [http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=266122 link]
*Allmusic Rating|4|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:mhmyxdgb5ol7 link]
*"The Guardian" Rating|4|5 [http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,16373,1601621,00.html link]
*"Mojo" Rating|4|5 Nov 2005, p.108
*Pitchfork Media (9.0/10) [http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/14956/Animal_Collective_Feels 2005]
*"PopMatters" (8/10) [http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/a/animalcollective-feels.shtml 2005]
*"Q" Rating|4|5 Nov 2005, p.131
*"Rolling Stone" Rating|3|5 [http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/animalcollective/albums/album/8654844/review/8719160/feels link]
*"Stylus Magazine" (A-) [http://stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=3465 2005]
*"Tiny Mix Tapes" Rating|4.5|5 [http://tinymixtapes.com/spip.php?article2450 link]
*"Uncut" Rating|4|5 Nov 2005, p.110
*"Urb" Rating|4.5|5 Oct 2005, p.76
Last album = "Sung Tongs" (2004)
This album = "Feels" (2005)
Next album = "Strawberry Jam" (2007)

"Feels" is the sixth studio album by New York City-based band Animal Collective, released in 2005 by FatCat Records. Animal Collective have described this as being their "love record" because every song on the album is a love song. It is their first release on which they have drawn a particularly strong influence from Western pop music. The cover art is an homage to the work of artist Henry Darger. The album was chosen as one of Amazon.com's Top 100 Editor's Picks of 2005. Initial copies contained a bonus disc of live material.

Recording

Feels is known for its interesting guitar sounds, which were obtained in part by the unique tuning the band used. Geologist explained how they created and used this tuning on the Collected Animals message board [http://rerz.net/ac/messages/viewtopic.php?t=1191] (the following quote is copied verbatim):

"All the songs on feels are tuned to our friends piano which was out of tune to begin with. Dave and I made loops from recordings of him playing her piano and we used those loops in the early songwriting process for feels. So since those loops are premade and can't be tuned, the guitars have to be tuned to the loops. it's not out of tune in any tradional whole step/half step kind of way...we're talking microtonally out of tune after years of not being professionally tuned and subtle natural detuning. Kind of like if you played guitar in standard tuning for years but never once re-tuned it to make sure it was right. It would have it's own unique out-of-tune tuning based on what strings you played most often, how hard you played it, the temperature in the room, the humidity, etc... When we went into the studio it ruled over everything we did. Even doctess's live piano playing required us bringing in a professional piano tuner, playing him a minidisc recording of our friend's out of tune piano, and having him try to de-tune the studio's piano in exactly the same way our friend's was. Without those recordings or the loops dave and i made, you wouldn't be able to get it exact unless you tune to the album while it's playing, and even then, you'd have to know which loop in the album we use to tune, which one chord it is, and because of the way we mixed the loop in, it is almost impossible to separate from dave's guitar. I'll never forget when the tuner finished (we had to wait to start recording until he finished) and he stood up from the bench and went 'there you go, the piano's perfectly out of tune.'"

Track listing

# "Did You See the Words" – 5:15
# "Grass" – 2:59
# "Flesh Canoe" – 3:44
# "The Purple Bottle" – 6:48
# "Bees" – 5:38
# "Banshee Beat" – 8:22
# "Daffy Duck" – 7:34
# "Loch Raven" – 4:59
# "Turn into Something" – 6:29

Limited edition bonus disc ("Live")

# "Banshee Beat" (April 23, 2005, Haverford, PA)
# "Loch Raven" (April 23, 2005, Haverford, PA)
# "Did You See the Words" (November 18, 2004, Chapel Hill, NC)
# "Wastered" (November 11, 2004, Toronto, ON)

Personnel

* Avey Tare
* Deakin
* Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir
* Eyvind Kang
* Panda Bear
* Geologist