Released this past January 5, indie psych-pop progresso-masters Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion may have been pretty much first out of the gate but as the year closes it's hard to argue that any other album has surpassed it in near-euphoric critical acclaim. We said: "The band's future-primitive music draws much of its mystical energy from opposing forces: beautiful melodies paired with abrasive noise and found sounds, acoustic folk instruments layered over electronic drums and samples, tribal dance beats tempered by long patches of beatless ambiance." Rolling Stone raised the chin-stroking ante gushing "A giddy, freewheeling, psychedelic beast of an album, full of big beats, trippy drones and glistening synths dancing around the band's rich, reverb-drenched, fugue-like vocal layers." And on. And on...

So as the votes are tallied and arguments made, AC returns to remind us of their avant-garde left-field majesty with Fall Be Kind, a five-track EP of Merriweather outtakes and odds and ends arriving December 15 (digital 11/23). A few of these have made their way into set lists of the band's recent live shows ("Bleed", "What Would I Want? Sky" -- featuring a licensed Grateful Dead sample) while "Graze" and "On A Highway" have been squirreled away for at least a couple of years, surfacing occasionally live as well. At a time when eclectic, interesting music steps sideways as the big holiday mega-guns are presented, it's a sharp, welcome jolt to get this little gift of immediacy and mayhem. God bless you Animal Collective. We'd say, "don't ever change", but then, that's part of the magic, isn't it?

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Animal Collective - "What Would I Want? Sky" (Live version recorded for the BBC's Freak Zone Sessions, 01/25/2009)