When: 7.30pm on Wednesday 14 January 2009
Where: Club Academy, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PR

We’re pleased to welcome Animal Collective back to Manchester for their first show here in over a year. They’re in town to promote their new album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, released on Domino Records with this worryingly static artwork.

If you haven’t slipped into hypnosis by now, here’s a bit of background for the band: In 2001, David Portner (aka Avey Tare) and Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) established Animal Collective in Baltimore to explore the fringes of folk, noise rock, ambient, drone and twisted psychedelia.

They’ve since produced a regular stream of albums – including a live release documenting their debut tour with Black Dice – on labels including Brighton’s FatCat and Paw Tracks, which for a while was run exclusively by Animal Collective members. At the same time, the band gained two additional members, Brian Weitz (Geologist) and Josh Dibb (Deakin), while David stepped back from their live set up.

Animal Collective’s most recent albums – Strawberry Jam, Feels and Sung Tongs – have received their greatest acclaim to date (including 9.3, 9 and 8.9/10 respectively on Pitchfork), while Noah’s Panda Bear album Person Pitch also drew praise across the board (9.4 on Pitchfork; 5/5 in the Observer; 9/10 on DrownedInSound). Quite simply, they’re an immensely talented bunch – and a great live prospect to boot.

Tour support comes from New York/Londoners Highlife.

This is a co-promotion with Pineapple Folk.

Tickets from Ticketline.co.uk, SeeTickets.com, Zavvi in the Arndale Centre, Ticketline Box Office in St John’s Centre, Liverpool, and on 0161 832 1111. You can also buy them at the Manchester University Student Union with no booking fee at all.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS SHOW IS SOLD OUT – JOIN THE MAILING LIST ABOVE FOR INFORMATION ABOUT FUTURE DATES.