‘Flower Garden Banks’
It’s a treat to share Flower Garden Banks, an Animal Collective x Coral Morphologic collaboration featuring “Michael, Remember (Jam May 12, 2015)”, the first warm-up jam for Animal Collective upon getting together to practice for the first time in a year and a half. It features Avey Tare, Panda Bear, and Geologist, and was recorded at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, NC. The accompanying underwater video was recorded in July 2014 within the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary over two nights by Colin, with additional camera and lighting by Deakin and Geologist of Animal Collective. The raw jam and video were later shared, and the resulting video was edited by Jared.
The Flower Garden Banks are located about 100 miles offshore Galveston, Texas in the Gulf of Mexico and are the northernmost coral reef formations in the continental United States. The reef begins at about 60’ deep and is characterized by massive brain coral heads and a lack of branching or soft corals. The corals were filmed with special blue wavelength lights and filters that capture the natural fluorescence of the colonies. While the evolutionary purpose that this fluorescence serves corals is still not fully understood, the directed application of the corals’ fluorescent proteins by geneticists was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 by serving to accelerate (and literally illuminate) the field of genetics and biochemistry.