Tangerine Reef Promotonal Image Image : Coral Morphologic

Animal Collective is one of my favorite bands, period. With eleven albums under their belt (even more if you count EPs, side releases and solo projects) the band has continued to display a knack for writing quality jams ever since their debut album in 2000. The most interesting thing about them is the “collective” aspect to their name, allowing any combination of the 4 members to work on music and have it still be counted as an official release by the band.




Tangerine Reef continues that tradition of fluidity by excluding Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear, a founding member who has been present on every album until now) from their lineup as he works on solo material and a tour of his own. However, unlike several music listeners I’m not really upset by his absence. Present are Dave Portner, Josh Dibb and Brian Weitz (aka Avey Tare, Deakin and Geologist respectively) who have been able to put on quite a show even without Lennox, to the point where I’m somewhat glad he’s gone. Dibb, who has been present on the least amount of material, has proven himself to be a brilliant songwriter with his latest album Sleep Cycle. Portner and Weitz have also released great material recently, most notably the previous Animal Collective release Meeting of the Waters. Lennox, however, hasn’t been releasing the best material for awhile, and I hope his break from the group will push him in the right direction.

Musically, Tangerine Reef is their strangest yet, and that’s saying something for these guys. An ambient record, the album combines electronic instruments and a wave-like rhythm to create some of the most soothing music I’ve listened to in awhile. Slow but vibrant, the album perfectly encapsulates the ocean, something only Ween has been able to capture before on The Mollusk (although they were aiming for a completely different aspect of the aesthetic). The music also has a strange sexual element to it, not that surprising considering that the live performance this music originates from was called Coral Orgy although it’s still unexpected (yet welcome).


Speaking of sexuality, I haven’t yet spoken of the film that accompanies this release, that film being absolutely brilliant. Wether you hate this album or love this album, it’s impossible to deny that Coral Morphologic has presented some incredibly beautiful coral imagery. The photography accompanying the physical release I purchased is absolutely stunning, and seeing the motions of the coral in the film accompaniment absolutely made my day. The imagery also has a very sexual element, something about their motions sparks parts of our brains associated with desire and lust. While I don’t want to fuck the sea plant, I want to fuck because of the sea plant.

The album isn’t perfect though. Some parts drag on a bit, and if you listened to this expecting Merriweather Post Pavilion 2.0 then you’d be incredibly bored. It’s enjoyable if you take it for what it is, an ambient album that’s meant to be soothing, but I doubt you could listen to this while working out the same you could Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished or Sung Tongs (which would be weird to work out to regardless but you get my point). It lacks the energy that every other Animal Collective album has, and while that isn’t a bad thing in itself it certainly places the album at a disadvantage from the start.


Above all positives and negatives, however, is the reason this album exists. The goal of this album is to celebrate the 2018 International Year of the Reef, and in doing so it perfectly raises awareness. It may sound cheesy as hell, but this album made me want to recycle more goddammit, me. I’m apathetic as hell and this fucking album made me care about sea plants, and if that’s not special then I dunno what is.

There are a few other things one may want to know. I bought a copy of this on vinyl and the sound quality was pretty good, I’m not an audiophile or anything but it certainly didn’t sound poor. The experience of buying it and subsequently downloading it was pretty easy, I had no problems there and I doubt anyone else did. They offer the album in both WAV and MP3 when you use the packaged download code, and you can use the code multiple times to get both and download it on other devices.


Overall I’m feeling an 8/10, however, I wouldn’t rank it high amongst other albums in their discography. I’d rate the film higher than the album itself, but that isn’t a bad thing.