Over the past two decades, Animal Collective and its members have produced at least half a dozen albums widely hailed as masterpieces. But what makes AnCo feel so much like a Great Band isn’t just those records—it’s the array of one-offs, collaborations, soundtracks, and idle experiments released between the classics. Every release isn’t guaranteed to blow your mind, or even be especially listenable (take, for example, Avey Tare’s entirely-backwards collaboration with Kría Brekkan or the ear-piercing buzz of Danse Manatee, which might sound unfriendly at first). Instead, Animal Collective’s appeal lies in how they’ve staked out an oasis of aspirational strangeness where anything can happen, and the usual expectations for a critically acclaimed indie rock band need not apply.
In that context, consider A Shaw Deal, an album Animal Collective’s Geologist made with his friend Doug Shaw of Highlife. Its runtime is less than half an hour, and Geologist, aka Brian Weitz, made it as a gift for Shaw’s birthday; still, given its place within the larger AnCo constellation, perhaps it’s not especially odd that the album got a proper release with a label and PR campaign and everything. You suspect this is the kind of thing people in AnCo-land make all the time: These guys live and breathe art, and in a cultural dark age where A.I. threatens to render artistic intent an old-fashioned concept, there’s something kind of noble about how much effort went into an album that’s basically an inside joke.
Geologist made these seven tracks by taking guitar recordings Shaw posted on Instagram during the pandemic and running them through his modular system until it spat out tangles of sound. The acoustic guitar has long been associated with a certain ideal of authenticity, of not needing fancy tech to get your feelings across. Here, that idea goes delightfully out the window. In Geologist’s hands, Shaw’s acoustic guitar sounds like a million other things while still resolutely sounding like itself, its notes sliding from one to another in big, oblong blocks rather than sounding plucked or strummed. “Petticoat” begins in similar territory to the West African-inspired pop doodles on Highlife’s 2010 EP Best Bless. But by the end of the track, its sound evokes a set of rubber chickens being played like a drum kit. On “Ripper Called” Shaw’s guitar could be mistaken for a squabble between woodwinds, before we hear what sounds like a giant sleeping bag being unzipped from the inside. “Route 9 Falls” splinters a fingerpicked snippet into a cascade of notes that suggests standing beneath a waterfall in the freezing cold. It’s abrasive in a purifying way.
As a birthday gift between friends, A Shaw Deal is pretty charming, but what’s in it for the casual fan? It contains no nods to pop, no moments that aim for the Beach Boys-like transcendence that permeates even Animal Collective’s looser and more improvisational releases. Your tolerance for freeform and frequently harsh-sounding guitar music determines whether A Shaw Deal will make it into your regular rotation or slot into the lesser-played ranks of the band’s catalog. But its funky, egoless spirit is infectious: less of a towering individual statement than another vivid shade in the wild splotch of color the members of Animal Collective have left across indie music.
