Animal Collective's hallucinogenic olk-pop has found an audience, but it is only one part of the group's urge to keep exploring sonic possibilities, frontman-by-default David Portner tells Jim Carroll

FOR everything there is a season, and now seems to be the right time for Animal Collective's engaging freak-out to make its mark. Their latest album, Feels, has elicited much critical warmth, mainly due to the fact that its hallucinogenic, ragged, cut-and-paste folk-pop is so much in tune with the ebbs and flows of the current musical wash.

But, as with most interesting acts, the album is just one scene from a lengthy drama. Dig a little deeper and those Flaming Lips and Brian Wilson comparisons flying around seem out of place when you come to certain twists and turns in the back-pages.

Since the four members first met at school in Baltimore, a bewildering selection of music has been released, collectively and individually. Animal Collective completists are busy-bees, especially as band members favour alter-egos and aliases: David Portner (Abey Tare), Noah Lennox (Panda Bear), Brian Weitz (Geologist, whose day job is advising the US government on environmental policy) and Josh Dibb (Conrad Deaken).

The Collective's sound is quite unique and more often than not glorious. The allure is in the detail as widescreen psychedelic gospel, chaotic folk idioms, warped harps, thrilling child-like choruses and highly appealing hooks come to the fore.

They know themselves that they turned a corner last year when the Sung Tongs album was released. Suddenly, Animal Collective discovered a growing audience beyond their usual haunts.

"That album sure brought out a lot of new fans to the live shows," says frontman-by-default David Portner. "You only can hope that we can bring these people with us now and maybe they'll be more open to stuff they wouldn't have normally listened to. Some people will be turned off by the new record because it doesn't sound like Sung Tongs, but what can you do? Some people will always be turned off, no matter what you do."

Yet the band themselves will keep coming back for more, despite the difficulty in maintaining a collective with members based in New York, Washington DC and Portugal.

"We're all a little separated from each other these days," says Portner. "Which makes touring and recording and writing and stuff nice because we haven't seen each other for a bit and it's good to hang out. It also means we have to plan things out a bit better in advance.

"We all play different things and think about different things and more than one of us writes music on his own. I suppose it just allows for all sorts of things to take place that wouldn't get a chance if we operated as a band in the traditional sense and I think that's a good thing."

But as more and more people gravitate towards those recent AC albums (other titles include Campfire Songs and Here Comes the Indian), the band themselves are finding that things have changed about how they approach the tasks in hand.

"I don't think we are the kind of people to do stuff just because we feel pressured to do it. But I can certainly feel pressure from all over lately. The music business people want things done one way and that's usually not the way we'd like to do it, so there's a bit of give and take. We always try to do things the way we'd like as long as it doesn't get anyone really angry."

There has, though, been something of a shuffle away from the more out-there sounds and ambiences of earlier recordings. "I think we did make an effort to move away from sounds we'd already explored and covered. If we create something that reminds us too much of something we've done before or that we think could easily fit onto a past album of ours, we'll abandon it there and then. We've covered that ground already and it's time to look forward."

What hasn't changed is their fondness for using every possible sound source to hand. "We use lots of found sounds, field recordings, electronics and feedback, but there's no exact process to how we work. We try and move around a lot as far as styles and approaches and instruments and things like that are concerned, but I think that's more to keep us excited and thinking about how a sound fits in with the mood of a song."

Such an approach probably endeared them greatly to Vashti Bunyan. The band were long-time admirers of the reclusive British folk singer's Just Another Diamond Day album. After an initial meeting over dinner in Edinburgh, AC and Bunyan found themselves in a studio recording the Prospect Hummer EP.

"It all seemed to magically come together in just three days," says Portner. "We had some songs which we hadn't recorded for Sung Tongs that we were really into, so we were happy to have a chance to revisit them, but we didn't know what to expect. At the time, Vashti was still a little unsure about her place in the music world. She's really shy as a singer so we had to push her. We just kept telling her that her voice is really amazing. We wanted to sing on the record, but her voice is just so special that we left it at that."

It's obvious that such experiences count far more to Portner and the band than any amount of promotional activities for their own work.

"What gets us excited is making music only we can make. It's all about doing stuff that we really want to do. We wanted to tour so that's what we did, no matter how hard it was. We started running our own labels and booking our own tours so we could achieve what we wanted, and I think people connected with that energy. Somehow selling records is not nearly as fun as running around and having a good time with each other."

Feels is out now on Fat Cat