Sung Tongs by Animal Collective
Sung Tongs is the fifth album by Baltimore-based band Animal Collective, released on May 3, 2004 by Fat Cat Records. Despite the name 'Animal Collective' attached to this album, only two of the band's four members play on it: Avey Tare (David Portner) and Panda Bear (Noah Lennox). As a result, Sung Tongs is a more stripped-down affair than other Animal Collective releases. On the album, Portner and Lennox both utilize acoustic guitars and tribal-like drums; the electric guitar, an important element in the Collective's previous album, Here Comes the Indian, is absent. This sound brought the band closer to the psych folk and freak folk genres that critics tended to group them in around this period. Sung Tongs is generally considered to be Animal Collective's breakthrough release; it generated much praise from critics upon its release and was frequently featured in best-of lists at the end of 2004.
Prepare to enter the world of your inner child, where words are rendered meaningless and every sight and sound is wonderfully new—that's the feel of this colourful 2004 album. Chiming, folky fingerpicking weaves through Avey Tare and Panda Bear's close harmonies on "The Softest Voice" and "Mouth Wooed Her", while assorted sounds (and their own voices) get twisted and looped into giddy exhaustion. Still, it all feels incredibly organic, like two children gleefully running through a forest ("Good Lovin Outside") before sitting by the campfire to clap and strum in celebration ("We Tigers").
