Merriweather Post Pavilion

Merriweather Post Pavilion is the eighth studio album by American experimental pop group Animal Collective, released in January 2009 on Domino Records. The group recorded the album as a trio featuring members Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Avey Tare (Dave Portner) and Geologist (Brian Weitz), with co-production by Ben H. Allen. It is titled after the Maryland venue of the same name, where Portner and Weitz attended concerts in their youth. Merriweather Post Pavilion saw the band continue to explore the electronica-based sound of their previous album Strawberry Jam, but favours a lusher, multi-layered production style compared to its predecessor. Drawing sonically from Panda Bear's 2007 solo album Person Pitch, and working largely without guitars, the band made extensive use of samplers and synthesizers as primary instruments, as well as prominent reverb. The band also installed PA systems in the studio in an attempt to replicate the energy of their live shows. The album peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 and No. 2 on the US Top Independent Albums charts. According to review aggregate site Metacritic, Merriweather was the most critically acclaimed album of 2009, and went on to sell over 200,000 copies by 2012. It spawned the singles "My Girls" (named the Best Song of 2009 by Pitchfork and Slant Magazine), "Summertime Clothes", and "Brother Sport". The album's reverb-heavy psychedelic pop sound would exert a wide influence on music of the subsequent decade. Background After recording Strawberry Jam in January 2007, guitarist Deakin (Josh Dibb) decided he would take time off from the group for undisclosed personal reasons. As a result, the group went about writing a new batch of songs to be played without guitar. The group debuted nine of these songs, most of which would later appear on the album, in May 2007 and toured with them through 2008.