Animal Collective talk “punchy” new album ‘Painting With’

After streaming their new record in full at Baltimore-Washington International airport over America’s Thanksgiving weekend (as you do) Animal Collective have lifted the lid of secrecy. Their new album, ‘Painting With,’ is due out next February, with first single ‘FloriDada’ leading the way.

Typically, Animal Collective approached the record with deliberate intentions when it came to the sound they wanted. “There was this idea of wanting to do something with short songs, with a homogenous energy to the record,” Noah Lennox, aka. Panda Bear, tells DIY. “We talked a lot about the first Ramones record - not that we expected the music to sound like that,” he adds, laughing “but we wanted to do something where the first song revs up the engine, and it kind of just cruises after that. We didn’t want to throw in some ethereal moment. We wanted to do something that blasted away the whole time.”

“We used the word punchy. We wanted a physical space,” explains Brian Weitz, the band’s own headtorch-clad Geologist. “Even though ‘Centipede Hz.’ is supposed to be this band in a room’ thing,” he adds, referring back to Animal Collective’s previous record, “and while this is a bit more electronic, we still wanted that here.”

Listen to lead single ‘FloriDada’ below.