Succinct, esoteric and stylistic

7s, the new album from Avey Tare, is, unsurprisingly, a product of several recordings made during the pandemic. Tare, who is an integral part of Animal Collective, has been doing solo projects since the early 2000s, and 7s is the newest addition to his venture of defining himself outside of Animal Collective’s popularity. Interestingly, 7s and Animal Collective’s most recent album, Time Skiffs, were worked on at around the same time out of Tare’s home in North Carolina.

Understandably, Tare’s style has redefined itself significantly from his nearly decade-old releases Down There and Eucalyptus. Instead of being atonal and filled with experimental keyboard sounds, 7s is more of a succinct tale of Tare’s thought processes, also containing more of his own vocals instead of samples and gentle hums.

The album begins with “Invisible Darlings,” which defines itself through an upbeat and quaint piano melody, which is repeated and modified throughout the track. Tare’s vocals and lyrics are somewhat muffled, and thus difficult to discern; however, this successfully shifts the focus to the musicality of his instrumentals. Despite Tare’s solo venture being explicitly isolated from Animal Collective, the playfulness of the track is very reminiscent of the free-spiritedness in the first tracks of Time Skiffs.

The next track, “Lips At Night” is a warming and folksy reminder of Tare’s musical and lyrical style. Once again, the instrumentals are lighthearted with simple melodies on guitar and drums that often repeat themselves underneath Tare’s voice, which is clearer on this particular track. Partway through the track, Tare draws attention to his lyrics, which are a mix of spirited and nonsensical, especially as he lilts the words, “Frequency of Key Biscane, I’ll get you Solomon’s Key for some Bitcoin / Travelers will need a rest, make it ten, I’ll see you back at the parking.”

“The Musical” employs these same stylistic practices, but instead is a track closer to Tare’s career and personal life. While a captivating melody lines Tare’s vocals, his lyrics are more simplistic and tell of his inner thoughts: “Then you’re in a group, or you’re solo on the stage / Is your audience the trees, or do you crave to be professional?” The track ends neatly just as its guitar riffs and choruses are formulaically stylized; however, the outro is a psychedelic stream of consciousness, only with esoteric sound effects and Tare rhythmically saying, “Jumping in the void, guess that’s how it made me feel / When the mouth would open up and project the sound that’s buzzing / Deep within my chest, is it my heart that makes the song?”

All reminders of Tare’s previous albums are not lost, though, as “Sweeper’s Grin” is an eight-and-a-half minute mostly instrumental haze. Tare exchanges the guitar and drums from his opening tracks for a keyboard-fueled realm of which he is, very evidently, more familiar with, as the melody is no longer predictable. Tare’s lyrics, while sparse, read more like poetry or extended wordplay, with lines like “Happy to be, where are the bells? / Happy to be carefree, do tell?” The track ends with the sound of running water, which closes the ethereal melodies that precede it aptly.

The final tracks, “Neurons” and “Cloud Stop Rest Start” are stark contrasts to the upbeat start of the album. Both are more dissonant and have some element of white noise–even the percussive elements contribute to the harmonic dissonance–and yet, are still succinct with clearly identifiable starts, ends and choruses. Interestingly, the playfulness that once occupied the atmosphere of the album has disappeared in its entirety, as “Cloud Stop Rest Start” is emotionally darker. Tare asks, “…did you feel so small? / And soldier, did you dream real pain,” in a call-and-response section of the track, with both parts of his voice bleeding into the other. The outro of the track is an unexpectedly warm woodwind harmony that gives the prior dissonant melody an air of stateliness, but it’s a stateliness that is still without upbeatness, a foreign reality that the beginning of the album was bereft of. In a way, though, it is an unsurprising and stylistic move befitting of Tare, who has most certainly done this before.