Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished

The first album by Avey Tare and Panda Bear, later retroactively classified as Animal Collective’s debut album. Heavily inspired by Avey Tare’s move from Baltimore to New York, a major theme in this emotional work is the loss of childhood and innocence.

All the songs were written by Avey. Noah (Panda Bear) solely provided drumming according to direction provided by Avey via beatboxing, but Avey was so impressed with it (dubbing it the “perfect percussion”) that he was credited along with Avey for the album’s conception. Noah uses brushed drumsticks on most of the drumming, apparently to emulate Love’s “Forever Changes” and Echo and the Bunnymen’s “Ocean Rain”.