“They wear light-rimmed hats and joyful smiles.”
For this short EP, the boys from Animal Collective teamed up with obscure freak-folk legend Vashti Bunyan for a collection of tunes that seem like the logical next step after Sung Tongs, and provide a nice bridge to their next album, 2005’s Feels.
A little history on the guest singer. Vashti Bunyan arrived in New York at the age of eighteen, discovering the music of Bob Dylan and deciding to dedicate herself to a career is music. Her talent was recognized by the manager of the Rolling Stones and her first single was penned by Mick and Keith. She decided to hop on a horse carriage with her boyfriend and move to Donovan’s commune, writing the songs for her debut album—Just Another Diamond Day—along the way. But the album did not sell well and she grew disillusioned with the industry, and quit the music business to raise her children. Around the time of Prospect Hummer, she was enjoying a bit of a late-career resurrection as her album had grown into something of a cult classic (though now it’s more regarded as a legitimate classic, simply under-heard upon its initial release). After the release of Prospect Hummer, Bunyan was signed by Fat Cat Records and released a follow-up to her debut album. It’s one of the neater stories of obscure artists coming out of the woodwork.
Having influenced/predicted the sounds of a diverse subsection of indie culture, including Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, Vashti Bunyan also served as a touchstone for the off-the-beaten-path acoustic experiments of the early Collective, though her sound isn’t as apparently influential on AnCo as on the others. Animal Collective never got as cute with their music as she did, but her delicate voice mixes well with their instrumentation on Prospect Hummer. Just like Sung Tongs, Hummer is a really nice balance between experimentation and palatability.
The result of the pairing is a really gorgeous collection of four songs. The cascading guitars of opener ‘It’s You’ are immediately recognizable as a predictor of the pleasant experiments ‘Flesh Canoe’ and ‘Bees’ from Feels, but Bunyan’s voice makes it something altogether different. There’s nothing to drive the song; no drum beat, no rhythm guitar. Just voice and occasional bursts of guitar and plunks of piano keys.
‘Prospect Hummer’ features one of those electronic beats that is so carefully put together that it almost sounds organic. It sounds kind of like it is partially composed from samples of someone beatboxing (but I could be off on that). The beat is joined by an off-the-wall distorted vocal loop before Panda Bear and Vashti Bunyan begin singing together, then eventually comes to a stop while the singers shift gears into what is essentially a wordless a cappella section (there is a light guitar accompanying the vocals). The lyrics that are discernible are just serviceable enough to not jeopardize the song’s undeniable aural beauty.
The sonic textures the band comes up with are interesting and evocative without grating on the ears, and even the lyric-less ‘Baleen Sample’ is pleasant compared to its analogs on earlier albums. It is very much akin to the pulsations of ‘Visiting Friends’ from Sung Tongs, but admittedly stands out as completely different from the three other songs here. The EP as a whole is what you would expect if you listened to Sung Tongs or Feels along with Just Another Diamond Day and considered what a combination of the two artist’s may sound like. It is has the creative flourishes that Animal Collective are known for but channeled through the endearing prism of hippie-folk. It’s the most obviously beautiful thing that Animal Collective has done, with much of the credit for that belonging to Vashti.
Favorite Tracks: Prospect Hummer; I Remember Learning How to Dive.
Sources:
Alexander, Michael. “‘If I could take off to the hills I probably would,’ says ‘Godmother of freak folk’ Vashti Bunyan ahead of rare Fife gig”. The Courier. 14 December 2018.
Murray, Robin. “Mythic folkie speaks to ClashMusic”. Clash. 18 January 2010.