Water Curses by Animal Collective

Like A-sides and B-sides, EPs only really made sense when vinyl was dominant. Do EPs even exist anymore? It's like those bands who emphasise their new single is a radio edit, when they have no hope of getting playlisted. Not even on student radio. Anway. To Animal Collective:

Critics and the music aficionados who pay attention to them couldn’t get enough of Animal Collective’s 2007 album, the at times difficult yet joyous Strawberry Jam. After all the excitement, it would perhaps be rude of the New York quartet to deny their fans Water Curses, an EP of Strawberry Jam off-cuts and leftovers.
Title track Water Curses burbles through highly strung keyboard buzzes and flute warbles so distorted they could almost be underwater. There is a melody, although it’s difficult to hold onto and gradually unravels into a jittering hullabaloo.
Water Curses is experimental, but underneath the freeform structure and sampling there is a pop song. It is strangely shaped, sometimes noisy and sometimes erratic, but still a pop song. Because it is simultaneously boldly experimental and celebratory, Water Curses is as much fun as the Beach Boys dancing to John Cage.
As for what it’s all about, it’s something to do with ‘I want to be like water’ and to ‘never need a doctor’. That’s just the lyrics you can understand. Who really knows? This is Animal Collective, after all.