Eucalyptus

It’s beautiful and playful and spiritual and full of soul, like their earlier work was. If you miss the aughts-era AC’s handcrafted, bitter-sweet-sour jamborees at all, you’ll want to check Eucalyptus out.

What’s also new about this particular Dave Portner is that the overflow of ideas, lyrics, and themes doesn’t turn spastic and blurry like it has on records past. Eucalyptus, though adventurous, is down to earth and focused. It’s by far the most spiritual Avey Tare has ever sounded (except for the transcendent love on AnCo staple ‘Fireworks’).

Though it lacks the electrifying newness of the Sung Tongs era, Eucalyptus is nonetheless a success. It is a patient, reflective, and decidedly low-key work, one that seems content to thrum along in its own corner of the universe without much regard for whether anyone’s there to receive its generous gifts.

Avey Tare’s stream of vanishing sounds, creaking floorboards, and silently intonated lullabies is romantic in its faded resemblance to our radiant, ever-growing environment; but as with Portner’s newly adopted city of Los Angeles, the supposed nature exists purely as an extension of the human desire to create and actualize what we see in our minds.

Eucalyptus is a carefully constructed illusion of random perceptions, an apparently scattered psyche coming together beautifully. [Aug 2017, p.102]

His latest album still resembles Animal Collective, but in a way that feels invigorating rather than tired.

It’s undoubtedly Avey’s best solo work to date, and another welcome reminder of Animal Collective’s ability to rejuvenate, surprise and delight.

Eucalyptus finds Portner going back-to-basics, taking listeners on a psychedelic but steady trip over 15 tracks with atmospheric and shifting samples ("Lunch Out of Order" Pt. 1 and 2), Sung Tongs-style guitar work ("Jackson 5," "PJ" and opener "Season High") and spaced-out instrumentation (the twisted "Boat Race" and lo-fi drone of "Dr aw one").

Though its songs are lightly augmented with overdubs and outside voices, as well as the faintest outlines of orchestrations from Eyvind Kang, Eucalyptus retains its air of bedroom intimacy.

At just over an hour, Eucalyptus is a bit too sprawling, and could have probably been pruned comfortably in half. This may have made it a little bit more accessible and coherent, but given Avey Tare’s boundary pushing mindset, this probably would have missed the point.