The New York City-based band Animal Collective have always retained a certain affinity towards watery aural theatrics since their inception in the the Baltimore noise scene. The title song on their companion EP to last year's sticky masterpiece, Strawberry Jam, aims to fill in any cracks in the band's frenetic and ever-shifting experimental pastiche with Avey Tare's (David Portner) gooey vocals. Strawberry Jam was the sound of a band finally sticking their aural oddities with the pop sensibilities always coiling up underneath the trio's whirring and crunchy noise. Save for the title track, Water Curses lacks the same pop veracity of the Strawberry but the three songs that were discarded from the full-length are varied enough to escape being sedentary B-sides.Water Curses starts in familiar territory, with the 'Fireworks'-esque arpeggiated flutes and synths of the title track. Tack piano bounces off a backbone ramshackle percussion and gurgling bubbles. Avey Tare's vocals are surprisingly jubilant as the see-saws around lightsaber noises and whatever Geologist (Brian Weitz) and Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) can throw at him.What comes next is a decidedly strange beast that when I found out Geologist wanted it for the closer of Strawberry Jam it made sense. Its languid course though glitchy house of mirrors makes 'Street Flash' a perfect schizophrenic center to an EP full of oddities. It was a wise choice that it was left out of Strawberry because of its 6:49 minute length. Rewinding tape loops and crunchy feedback oscillations add to Tare's lyrics about a town "where all the clocks had died." When Tare screams in his usual way it is sometimes lost in the scribbled ether of dopplering electronics.'Cobwebs' samples airplane take-offs and clanking percussion for its minimal soundscape. Soon it morphs into a guitar jam/mantra with Tare repeating the phrase, "I'm not going underground." Immediately after the band blasts the scene with white noise and the repeated song title. Its the perfect example of the Animal Collective song where the second half trumps the first by collapsing the rickety structure that the band carefully constructed just prior.Even if this EP might be seen as disparate attempts at past glories the song's have a strange glue that sticks them together in Avey Tare's vocal performance. Its strange to say it for a band known for anything but vocals, but the band's meanderings and stately piano titters on the final track fall into the background, and Tare's lilting voice makes 'Seal Eyeing' more than a weird experiment and something inherently emotional. Water Curses tries desperately to tap into that twilight middle-ground during its short time with us. 76% Links Animal Collective [myspace] [label] [paw tracks]