Saw Me Some ODDSAC

29 March 2010 :: Cinema 21, Portland, OR

The first thing director Danny Perez tells us is how personal the movie is to him and Animal Collective, an explanation offered for the violence proposed if Perez were to come across any audience member filming what we were about to witness. With this he holds aloft a Red Bull can and announces the brand, almost as if in his consumption of the drink he can better validate his threats of audience pummeling. Already I’m not sure what he means; that Red Bull will strengthen him, the spinach to his Popeye? That he’s wired on artificial energy and so is, to coin an appropriate term, manslaughter-y? That he’ll splash me with Red Bull and get my cardigan sticky? That he wants another one? I’m confused, sure—within ten minutes of being at the theater—that I’m totally fucking missing something here.

When, during the Q&A following the hour-long film, someone asked what exactly “ODDSAC” (spelled like that; yes, all caps) meant, the band (the Geologist, Deakin, and Avey Tare were in attendance) kinda shrugged in unison and mumbled something about an in-studio joke they could no longer recall. When someone inevitably asked about drug use, Perez pulled an air horn from his ratty jacket and answered by honking it, as if him and the band discussed beforehand how funny it would be to do so when someone inevitably asked the question no one really wanted to answer, leaving the audience stymied and uncomfortable. And when another person, not two minutes later, asked the exact same question—I consider throwing Raisinets. I really am missing something here.

Let’s get one thing straight: ODDSAC is obviously, somehow—who gives a shit how, really; be it meant for drug-users or made by drug-users or both or tangentially so, the same thing is there, huge above our heads, bleeping and flashing and colorful, for a blaring hour—related to drugs. Animal Collective too; these are not things that should surprise you. I’m not really sure what Portland wanted to hear—that, yes, the band gets high? That they were high when they created this? Portland was asking some really fucking lame questions, sure, mostly interpretations of the band built on only recent records or vague queries about stupid shit like their “headspace” or whatever someone says right before saying I’m just saying, but what really killed the buzz were the band’s and director’s answers, a terse mix of condescension, inside jokes, boring white noise, and the occasionally poignant aside. The mild-mannered and awkward Q&A session had grown into a perfect storm of dumb, time-wasting human interaction, and somewhere near the blustery fringe I wondered why I paid more money than I paid to see The Men Who Stare At Goats to see Danny Perez’s and Animal Collective’s gross, pulpy sideshow.

Let’s get one more thing straight: ODDSAC is not very pleasant. In fact, at times I was terrified and felt like I had lied to everyone who came with me about how truly scary it was going to be. Maybe it was how loud the music got in the theater, how abrasively loud a lot of it was—and this paired with flashing, sometimes manic images make ODDSAC more times than not a tense balance of endurance and forced, public introspection. (At least twice I thought I heard someone throw up; I’m sure I saw one guy get up and run out, cheeks bulging.) I have trouble describing the music besides saying it sounded like Animal Collective circa, maybe, Feels (2005); the music and the movie will never be separated and sold, another interesting tidbit I pulled from the wreckage of the movie’s hangover, and so attempting to recount it would mostly be spotty and probably made up. How about: there was fire-twirling and black leaking goo and a hypnotized food fight and a lonely vampire who attacks a family with a marshmallow problem—ODDSAC sounds like how you think all of this would sound, summarily intense music leavened, sometimes, with ambient folk or some such warbly strum. The music was good, and it was new Animal Collective, and so in this I rejoiced.

But Perez’s accompanying string of vaguely related symbols and wild colorful vignettes and ceaselessly transforming bursts of shapes and colors? Enhh; it was fine, at times graceful and gorgeous but only for impatient stretches, more antagonizing and aimless than something I’d like to revisit and explore. I’ve done all the exploring I need to at this point: when describing themes and influences and reasons behind aesthetic choices, the band mostly communicated via blank stares and feeble, blurry rememberings of the recording and editing. Not like Portland was asking for an annotated guide to an obviously free-form, experimental piece; me, I’d just like to get a bit of insight into the intent of the people who made it, so maybe I can take a better angle in penetrating its otherwise stubborn shell. Instead, I came away with the one feeling I’d never wanted to confront in all my time spent with and inspired by Animal Collective: that all they’ve been doing, all along, is just fucking around.