Appropriately, the stage was wrapped in teeth. Incisors hanging from the rafters, canines and premolars at the foot, forming a light-up, abstract, multicolored jaw. If you sat and thought about it long enough from the crowd, you might get in a distressing internal debate: are we on the outside of this giant mouth looking in, or vice versa? But that’s the thing about experimental rock trailblazers Animal Collective – they want you to be confused. They’ve made a career out of pulling the rug out from under their crowd.

Early shows in loft spaces and arty basements were notoriously uproarious, intense, unrestrained – playing a show at Haverford College circa 2005, keyboard player Geologist swung from piping along the ceiling, shimmying out over the crowd. As their freak-psych sound grew in appeal, the band took a right turn and made the ultra-catchy and accessible Merriweather Post Pavilion, released in 2009. On that tour, the band stood stoic and Kraftwerk-style behind four synthesizers, not showing much of the unbridled energy we saw early on. So, um, are they a pop band now? Nope – their first release on the heels of Merriweather was the minbending, alienating film-and-music collaboration ODDSAC, followed by the current Centipede Hz, an album that – while not overly weird – shows little of the catchiness of its predecessor. Which brings us to The Mann Center on Wednesday. What kind of Animal Collective would the thin-but-devoted crowd of maybe 3,000 be treated to? As it happened, it was the best of both worlds – a band with instruments and the energy of the early days, playing songs with a poppy and broadly-appealing spin.

Drawing heavily from Centipede. the new material was resuscitated for the stage – the intense conga rhythms of “Today’s Supernatural” shot out, while the bass-heavy breakdown of 7″ single “Honeycomb” had crowd and band jumping. There wasn’t much in the way of instrument-swapping – Panda Bear stayed stationed behind the drums, Deakin on guitar, Avey Tare on keys – but the band moved to the music, jostling and jumping and spinning in their respective corners of stage.

The set’s middle section meandered into lulling drone, songs melding into other songs, none really jumping out. It was a fine opportunity to get lost in the imaginative, colorful, pulsating set design – large inflatable talons that arced across one side or the other of the giant stage-mouth. But not even this could save the dull “New Town Burnout”; there was simply no there there.

But picking back up with the new “Monkey Riches” – a pulsing, progressive synth rock swell over six minutes and change – the closing trifecta was a winner. “Brother Sport” from Merriweather Post ignited the crowd into rave-dancing mode and set-closer “Peacebone” from 2007′s Strawberry Jam brought Avey Tare out from behind the keyboards, dancing spasticly, diving into the outstretched arms of the front row. Combined with the blissful singalong encore of “My Girls,” this showed that Animal Collective has the power to galvanize its crowd – but only on its own terms.

Setlist
Also Frightened
Applesauce
Wide Eyed [video]
Today’s Supernatural [video]
Honeycomb [video]
Lion in a Coma [video]
Moonjock
Pulleys
New Town Burnout [video]
Monkey Riches [video]
Brother Sport [video]
Peacebone

Encore:
Cobwebs [video]
My Girls [video]
Amanita

What’s up Philly, it’s Brownie from the Disco Biscuits. I hope you all caught my bandmate Aron’s City Bisco Preview playlist the other day – if not, you can read and listen right here. Turns out he missed a couple of the 15 acts joining us at the Mann for the next two nights, so I’ve got his back – check out our UPDATED playlist here and read on for some deep thoughts…

Brothers Past are literally like the little brothers we never had. We keep inviting them back to our fests year in, year out for a reason… they’re awesome! Tommy even lives in Magner’s house! That’s how close we all are. I’ve been playing with them in bands for over a decade, and there’s no way we’d ever throw a Philly festival without having our closest friends in the scene right by our side.

Speaking of family, Wyllys (aka Wade Wilby) has been a part of the Disco Biscuits’ fabric for over a decade. When we started hanging out with him, we were surprised just how much he knew about our culture, our band, and our scene. In the ten years that we’ve been friends with him, it’s been a pleasure to watch him go from a total unknown to the leader of the nu-disco scene in the States. If you want to dance tomorrow, make your way up to the Skyline Stage at 4:00 as Wyllys kicks off an evening of nu-disco at the Mann. Wyllys isn’t on Spotify, but check out some tracks at his Soundcloud.

Nadis Warriors – Two years ago when playing Nocturnal Festival outside Austin, I heard some really nice sounds coming from the stage. I turned around said “Who’s this?,” and was told it was a local Texas band called the Nadis Warriors. And I made a note right then and there, look out for the Nadis Warriors, we’ll be hearing from them in the future… and we are.

Tiger & Woods – When we started booking this festival, as usual I put feelers out to our fanbase – What do you want to see? Who do you want us to book? And over and over again, the same two words kept coming up: Tiger. And Woods. So I took this as a cue that here was an act that I needed to check out, and when I did I was able to see what all the hype was about. And we immediately booked them for City Bisco.

Make sure you make it out early tomorrow and Saturday to support everyone who’s playing City Bisco – we’ve got a ton of fresh talent gracing the stage right from the start. Find the full schedule here and see you all there!

Photo by Dave Vann

Hey guys – it’s Aron Magner from the Disco Biscuits, bringing you our first guest post on The Key in honor of City Bisco! Our first-ever urban Bisco extravaganza goes down this weekend at the Mann Center, where we’ll be joined each day by an all-star lineup.

There’s a lot of thought that goes into picking artists for a festival that we’re curating. Our wish list is always large and there are a ton of moving parts, but at the end of the day we are consistently proud of the full lineup we present when these events come together, and CITY BISCO is no exception. These are all artists you should know about if you don’t already, so I’ve put together a little playlist with some favorites for you to check out. Hope you enjoy!

Diplo – Every project he touches turns to awesome. Major Lazer..MIA..Snoop Lion, don’t matter. Awesome. The video for “Express Yourself” has caused tens of thousands of girls to tweet pictures of themselves “twerking” to Diplo. He then retweets the best of the best – which, amazingly, amounts to dozens on a daily basis.

A-Trak – This cat was a child prodigy of turntablism. Won competitions all over the world when he was a teenager. Even Kanye fell in love with him and picked him up for his tours. Also, who knew he came from such a talented musical family? His brother is in Chromeo, who we had at Camp Bisco a few years back. Obviously, I respect them both a lot.

RJD2 – I love every performance I see of RJ’s. 4 turntables and an MPC, what could possibly go wrong? There’s also an incredible interview I heard a couple years ago on the World Cafe. Here’s the link, which includes a cool video feed.

Aeroplane – I had a blast in a VIP cabana at the Fontainebleau during my first ULTRA with these guys. Well, now it’s just one guy, but whatever, you don’t need 2 kidneys, right? Go right to Aeroplane’s SoundCloud page. A new hour-long mix is released each month that’s always perfect for any party.

Cinnamon Chasers – It’s always cool when an artist reinvents himself, but it’s even cooler when he doe it while simultaneously developing his original alter-ego, in this case: Abakus. Did you know he has yet another project collaborating with his dad, Dave Davies of the Kinks?

Ott & the All-Seeing I (live band) – Could not be a nicer man in all of show business. I have respected his songwriting and production techniques for years. This show will mark one of the first times ever he has adapted his one man show to a live band. He also loves apples. Seriously. He will be endeared to you for life if you offer him an apple.

The Manhattan Project – The Young Lions of the Jamtronica scene. This duo of pure musicians are a powerhouse. They are coming up fast…so you better go check ‘em out!

Paper Diamond – My Boy Alex B. Nuff Said. He’s tearing it up right now and all well deserved. Beatz with a Z.

Papadosio – Welcome to the next generation of Livetronica. Represent represent boys.

Tipper – British, which is always a plus…range of styles…fun to watch…killer trax.

Alpha Data – The sound of 2012. A young artist that has quickly risen to the top of the beatport glitch charts. The guy talks a lot, like a lot, so it was only fitting when my bandmate Marc Brownstein was among those taking note of him last year. They could probably talk to each other for days.

City Bisco is this weekend October 5-6 at the Mann, and features the Disco Biscuits plus 15 other cutting-edge electronic acts. Tickets are available now at Ticketmaster.

It’s a safe bet that nobody who saw Bon Iver‘s set at The Mann Center for the performing arts last night will again describe the Wisconsin-based new-folk collective as “mellow.” Under the guidance of frontman and songwriter Justin Vernon, the band worked its way through a 16-song, 90-minute set that hit tremendous heights and explored haunting valleys, beginning with the stark solo opener “The Woods.” Originally found on Bon Iver’s 2009 EP Blood Bank, this song’s mystical ebb and flow of auto-tune vocal passages reached broader ears in 2010 when Kanye West interpolated it into the song “Lost in the World” on his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. With Vernon a solitary figure onstage among dim lights, his voice wandered in an architecture of loops and layers reminiscent of Laurie Anderson and Imogen Heap. A beat, a breath, and then the stage erupted into a thundering full-band performance of “Perth” from last year’s Bon Iver, Bon Iver. The set followed a similar pattern: in a vigorous take on “Flume” from 2008′s For Emma, Forever Ago, the nine-piece band created a rich progressive swell of sound from behind rows of beacon lights and under ragged backlit tapestries (the stage set alone was captivating), then later brought the pace down for a stark solo-acoustic rendition of that album’s popular number “Skinny Love.” Guiding the rise-and-fall were curious interludes; Michael Noyce played a jagged, John Cale-style violin solo to transition between “Hinnom, TX” and “Wash,” later saxophonist Colin Stetson answered his bandmate with mix of rhythmic scales and intense staccato bleats. While these elements took the set to its experimental fringes, it reached the other end of the spectrum as well, with a very poppy rendition of “Beth / Rest” closing out the main set, and a jaunty “For Emma” ending the show. But that wasn’t before Vernon entreated the crowd to sing (and scream) along to the epic, post-rock swell of “The Wolves (Act I and II),” while he thrashed away at his guitar, jolted around the stage, fell to the floor, played on his back, bolted upright and generally fought back against any threat of being pigeonholed as a low-key singer-songwriter. Check out a photo recap in the gallery above, and read the setlist below.

1. Woods
2. Perth
3. Minnesota, WI
4. Towers
5. Flume
6. Hinnom, TX
7. Wash
8. Holocene
9. Blood Bank
10. Skinny Love
11. Creature Fear
12. Calgary
13. Beth/Rest

Encore:
15. The Wolves (Act I and II)
16. For Emma

When its doubly self-titled sophomore record first hit speakers last spring, Bon Iver began to feel less like it was merely the nom-de-stage of a solo singer-songwriter, a conventional guy-with-a-guitar, one Justin Vernon. The acoustic introspection and haunting isolation of its 2008 debut, For Emma, Foever Ago grew into something lush and expansive on Bon Iver, Bon Iver, with emotive playing and majestic arrangements. On the new album, Bon Iver began to feel like a band.

This was, after all, inevitable. As Vernon told WXPN’s David Dye when he was interviewed for World Café last autumn, the first record was borne out of a highly introspective time. “There was a little bit of tail-between-my-legs going on,” he acknowledges of writing it following the end of a romantic relationship and the breakup of his old band, DeYarmond Edison. This element – working on music alone and sad in a cabin in the Wisconsin winter – was possibly overly mythologized, but nonetheless, For Emma was crafted as a collection of very personal songs, and sounds like one.

As soon as Vernon began performing these songs under the guise of Bon Iver, they began to morph. Solo shows grew into two-piece performances with drummer Sean Carey, then further into quartet configuration with guitarist Michael Noyce and bassist Matthew McCaughey, all the way to the nine-piece ensemble that will play The Mann Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday.

“Everyone just kind of came into my life at different times,” Vernon told Dye on the Café. “And really, the first time we ever got together as a full nine-piece, a few guys had never met each other.”

Despite this, revamping the older material – like “Beach Baby” from the Blood Bank EP – for the new configuration of Bon Iver happened easily and organically. “I think that everyone was semi-familiar with the music,” Vernon continues. “But everyone that was handpicked was a good person and a strong musician and also a strong character. I think that, when we all got together, we just approached it and it just kind of happened. It was kind of stunning actually that we all just kind of had ideas, we all listened to each other’s ideas and it was naturally, it was easy to roll ‘em out.”

Another growth that Bon Iver experienced in its transition from solo project into band – aside from the sheer numbers of players brought on board – was the more refined, rounded sound of the music. On For Emma, Vernon’s voice and phrasing is pained, jagged and husky – on Bon Iver, Bon Iver, it’s practically angelic.

“Something that was underappreciated by me as a songwriter growing up is how you deliver a line,” Vernon told Dye. “Sometimes you have to have the right mind to deliver for it to stick in there. You know, Bob Dylan is great at that, with how good he can make a word sound and put it in a pocket. I think that it’s starting to develop in my brain a little bit.”

This carries to the instrumentation. Even though the band is big, and sounds big, there’s a great deal of sonic restraint in play. Warm guitar tones and solitary vocals open “Perth” before the drums and band start a minute into the song. “Calgary” simmers to a swell of synthesizer and choral vocals. The use of space is generous and judicious. Vernon famously contributed vocals to Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and that experience had him working with craftsmen of the opposite extreme. He described to Dye studio technicians spending eight hours to get a snare drum sound just right.

“When you’re working on a record like that, you can really get away with throwing a lot at it and then dealing with editing it,” Vernon said. “Kind of constructing and deconstructing and constructing. I think that those experiences in the last few years of recording really definitely informed me as I went forward.”

A final growth worth noting – Vernon’s transition from small one-man-band to indie royalty, an artist with a million-plus Facebook followers, 288,000 Twitter followers. The clout this guy has in music right now is substantial, and even though many still view him as the sole member of this epic ensemble, he shrugs it off.

“I think that you could decide to be a famous guy and to act a certain way,” Vernon mused. “Or you can just decide to be who you are, and I think that’s a lot more comfortable and sane and accurate for me.”

Bon Iver plays The Mann Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday, September 16 at 7:30 p.m., with Anais Mitchell opening. Tickets to the all-ages show range from $29.50 to $49.50 and are available here. Listen to Bon Iver’s World Cafe session and interview in its entirety here (via the WXPN media player).