The current canoodling between rock and dance music has made for some rich fusions—guitars and sequencers battle for prominence!—but it's made for just as much intrigue by simply giving rise to increased awareness on both sides of the divide. As curious rock bands pick up a stray techno record and inquisitive electronic producers wonder what's happening outside of dance clubs, they all have a chance to affect each other—or at least misunderstand each other in interesting ways.
Weird-folk troupe Animal Collective isn't a straightforward rock band in the strictest sense, but it's notably less devoted to German techno than Jane, a side project featuring AC member Noah Lennox. Rounded out by DJ Scott Mou and a store of ideas cribbed from the key Cologne label Kompakt, Jane wanders through mystical ambient sounds propped up by electronic clicks and swells of varying intensity. The title track starts with a warm synthetic wheeze and ceremonial hums by Lennox, who sounds like a monk lost on the moon. "Agg Report" gives rise to the first real beat, a gentle mutter of kick-drum with hi-hat sashaying overtop. The parts are all simple and softly imbued, reminiscent of the humid house moods of producers like Lawrence.
Then "Slipping Away" wanders into a storm of noise: After a pitch-shifted keyboard gives up trying to play straight, the track moves through a wholesale German sample, playing dub tricks with stomping beats and gristly clangs. It sounds less like straight dance music than like two wowed devotees listening to dance music from another room. Most of Jane's vocabulary has been exposed by the 24-minute outro "Swan," but it's a language of tongue-tied murmurs that speaks well for open ears.