Feels | ||||
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Studio album by Animal Collective | ||||
Released | October 18, 2005 | |||
Recorded | March 2005 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 51:48 | |||
Label | FatCat | |||
Producer | Animal Collective | |||
Animal Collective chronology | ||||
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Singles from Feels | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Aggregate scores | |
Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 84/100 |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | |
Entertainment Weekly | A |
The Guardian | |
Mojo | |
NME | 8/10 |
Pitchfork Media | 9.0/10 |
Q | |
Rolling Stone | |
Spin | A− |
Uncut |
Feels is the sixth studio album by Baltimore-based band Animal Collective, released in October 2005 by FatCat Records. Initial copies contained a bonus disc of live material. It also appeared at #55 on Pitchfork Media's top 200 albums of the 2000s (decade).
All four of the band's members perform on the album.
Feels is known for its unconventional guitar sounds, which were obtained in part by the unique tuning the band used. Geologist explained how they created and used this tuning on the Collected Animals message board:
"All the songs on Feels are tuned to our friends piano which was out of tune to begin with. Dave and I made loops from recordings of him playing her piano, and we used those loops in the early songwriting process for feels. So since those loops are premade and can't be tuned, the guitars have to be tuned to the loops. it's not out of tune in any traditional whole step/half step kind of way...we're talking microtonally out of tune after years of not being professionally tuned and subtle natural detuning. Kind of like if you played guitar in standard tuning for years but never once re-tuned it to make sure it was right. It would have its own unique out-of-tune tuning based on what strings you played most often, how hard you played it, the temperature in the room, the humidity, etc... When we went into the studio it ruled over everything we did. Even Doctess's live piano playing required us bringing in a professional piano tuner, playing him a minidisc recording of our friend's out of tune piano, and having him try to de-tune the studio's piano in exactly the same way our friend's was. Without those recordings or the loops dave and i made, you wouldn't be able to get it exact unless you tune to the album while it's playing, and even then, you'd have to know which loop in the album we use to tune, which one chord it is, and because of the way we mixed the loop in, it is almost impossible to separate from dave's guitar. I'll never forget when the tuner finished (we had to wait to start recording until he finished) and he stood up from the bench and went 'there you go, the piano's perfectly out of tune.'"
Feels is the first album to feature significant contributions from musicians outside its core members. Geologist described the contributions of Doctess (at that time married with band member Avey Tare) and the recording process on the Collected Animals message board: