Presidential Briefing – December 8, 2008
Welcome to the new war on drugs, Mr. President. Please meet our secret weapon, Avey Tare.
That’s right, Mr. President. In cooperation with the UN, the special international task force code-named “Animal Collective” has announced plans to initiate its latest offensive in the ongoing battle against drug-abuse among the prime demographic (music listeners) under the cover generated by its highly-anticipated decoy album Merriweather Post Pavilion, which hits stores January 20 of 2009. With the drug-addled youth thus districted, Avey, Panda, and Geologist (more code names, sir) will undertake a cunning plan to diffuse the necessity of hallucinogenic drug abuse while listening to an Animal Collective record by (and my God Almighty have mercy on them if they should fail) supplying their OWN psychotropic visuals with their next dose of, er... of what the military calls “youth music.”
Agent Dave Portner (Avey Tare) describes the project as a “visual record” that he hopes will deter and/or discourage his listeners from indulging in the illegal ingestion of illicit hallucinogenic substances. “The lines were really blurry when we started," Agent Porter stated in a recently staged press conference, already speaking in character. "It was going to be a film, like a feature film, but by no means a narrative. It's more collaborative, between us and our friend Danny Perez, who did one of our music videos."
Portner went on to insinuate that Perez has been working on the visuals for the as-yet-untitled project for more than two years, so as to buildup the expectation of the target demographic audience, and that the “band” will be providing the accompanying music. "This year, we got to a place where we can start doing demos and nailing all the sounds down, while we're at home," Agent Portner explained skillfully, sounding every bit as much like a “popular musician” (such as Brandon Flowers or fellow government agent “Rockwell”) as officials present at the conference could have hoped. “It's something new for all of us,” he concluded. “It's been a work-as-we-go process.” Our research shows that drug users respond positively to this kind of casual slang and lack of concrete release dates or album titles, and we are hopeful that the as-of-yet untitled “visual record” project will finally put an end to this epidemic of music-related drug use.
Meanwhile, as a distractionary measure, Project “Animal Collective” will “take to the road” in January around the launch of Merriweather Post Pavilion, via our partners at Domino. After seven European dates, the band will play New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles on January 20, 22, and 23, respectively. We’ve got those fiends on the ropes this time, Mr. President. I can feel it.
Project “Animal Collective” Dates (Declassified):
