Animal Collective brought a free-flowing experimental giddiness to American independent music when it emerged on the scene more than a dozen years ago. The group was a quartet at first, but it’s been operating in its mostly trio form for much of the past decade. The members had ties to Maryland and to Brooklyn, but they’ve become a little more decentralized, atomized, global, which fits their sound.
With two distinctive and strong songwriters — Avey Tare and Panda Bear — the group could shift from shamanic stomps to dreamy Beach Boys harmonies, drawing on hip-hop, dub, samba, field recordings, soundtrack music, and whatever other strains they wanted to pick up along the way. You could compare them to Radiohead, in terms of boundary pushing, only in place of high-art avant-modernist tendencies Animal Collective go more for wide-eyed loopy weirdness.
The band just released a new four-song EP, “Meeting of the Waters,” earlier this month. It starts with the 13-minute “Blue Noses,” an extended musique-concrete/ambient excursion that turns into a gently strummed bit of burbling acid folk. You could reasonably listen to the new E.P. after listening to the band’s record, “Painting With,” from last year, and not know it was the same group. It might throw newcomers off the trail, but fans know enough to wade in deep and to wait for the nuggets that these innovators are likely to toss off during their wanderings. Some of it might sound like transmissions from some alien radio, but that can be cool, too.
Animal Collective takes the stage at College Street Music Hall, 238 College St., New Haven, Friday, May 26, at 8 p.m. $25 to $27. collegestreetmusichall.com.
