Cows on Hourglass Pond

Two years after stirring up a murky swirl of psychedelic folk on *Eucalyptus*, Dave Portner sounds like he’s in a brighter mood on *Cows on Hourglass Pond*, his third solo album away from his day job in Animal Collective. The energy levels here don’t quite match the kaleidoscopic, kinetic overload of his group at their most madcap, but jangly guitars lend a cheerful air to songs like the breathless “Eyes on Eyes” and “Saturdays (Again),” while dub-techno beats (“What’s the Goodside?”) and inventive sound design (“Our Little Chapter”) find Portner continuing to push himself sonically. And as centerpiece “K.C. Yours” attests, his imagination has never been in sharper form: Set to a groove that’s both wistful and rollicking, the song vividly imagines a post-apocalyptic scenario in which robot overlords rule everything, even love.

Cows On Hourglass Pond was recorded between January - March 2018 by Dave Portner at Laughing Gas in Asheville, NC on a Tascam 48 half-inch reel-to-reel tape machine.

Dave Portner’s latest solo excursion stakes out a middle ground between the exterior and interior, between direct melodies and the oblique music they float on.

The Animal Collective maestro returns with idiosyncratic opus, Cows On Hourglass Pond

A new kind of psych-folk he can proudly call his own.

Dave Portner, known under his stage name Avey Tare, went in various directions with his solo work as well, from the swampy gunk of 2010's Down There to the sprawling emotional whirlwind of 2017's Eucalyptus, an often-formless home-recorded reflection on major shifts in his personal life.

Cows on Hourglass Pond quickly establishes a balance between dreamy soundscape and groovy dance track. The bass line on "What's the Goodside...

As Animal Collective ventures further into jam band territory, Avey Tare's solo work pulls in the opposite direction, providing a much needed respite from the literal minded excess that has marked the band's more recent output.

Avey Tare pushes the limits of his looping art-pop in our review of the magical and slow-burning 'Cows On Hourglass Pond'