Animal Collective's pivot resulted in one of their most accessible albums yet

XPN | By Stephen Kallao,

Kimberly Junod, Miguel Perez

Published July 25, 2022 at 9:58 AM EDT

Animal Collective has been one of the most dynamic bands of the last 20 years, exploring different sonic terrain spanning 11 studio albums. The band has also been dynamic with its composition — members Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Deakin and Geologist have all taken breaks from the group to pursue their own solo projects. Change is a constant in Animal Collective. So what happens when their recording plans for Time Skiffs, their latest studio album — one they planned to record together — were interrupted by the COVID pandemic? They pivoted, just like they do from album to album, to make arguably their most accessible album since their critically acclaimed and commercially successful album, Merriweather Post Pavilion.

In this session, I caught up with Dave Portner and Noah Lennox, also known as Avey Tare and Panda Bear, to talk about making Time Skiffs, starting with a performance recorded live at Union Transfer in Philadelphia.

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Stephen Kallao

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Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

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Miguel Perez

Miguel Perez is a radio producer for NPR's World Cafe, based out of WXPN in Philadelphia. Before that, he covered arts, music and culture for KERA in Dallas. He reported on everything from the rise of NFTs in the music industry to the enduring significance of gay and lesbian bars to the LGBTQ community in North Texas.