Time Skiffs

When Animal Collective emerged from the fringes of New York’s underground in the early 2000s, it was hard to imagine they’d become what they did—a big-tent psychedelic band that could handle festival stages while still pushing the avant-garde; an art project that skirts the mainstream while still making music more visionary and unusual than most of their indie peers. Whereas 2016’s <i>Painting With</i> explored the manic side of their sound, <i>Time Skiffs</i> is, by and large, chill—a lazy river of sound that mixes the primitive and the New Age-y (“Cherokee”), the funky and the ethereal (“Prester John”). And while there’s always a tinge of uncertainty—the Cheshire Cats to their sweet-natured Alice—the music always resolves gently toward the light. If they’re not our Grateful Dead, nobody is.