Judging by the arrival on yesterday’s blog of a bunch of fans asking me to leak “Merriweather Post Pavilion”, there’s a fair bit of anticipation for this new Animal Collective album that I got hold of on Monday. Unfortunately, folks, I’m not going to leak this, or any other album, because: a) I like to play nice; b) I’d get sacked if I did leak it (the CD is watermarked with my name, so it’d be traceable if I uploaded it); and c) I’m much too technically incompetent to do that, in any case. Hope that’s clear.

Strangely, Animal Collective seemed to take a mild critical poke for "Strawberry Jam" last year, perhaps due in part to the extravagant blog love for the Panda Bear solo album, "Person Pitch", which preceded it by a few months.

Uncut.co.uk has four exclusive streams from 'Strawberry Jam'

Last night's Benicassim ended for us at about 7am this morning, after chilling out from a hard night's work by the backstage swimming pool with the Arctic Monkeys, some Horrors, Fifi Geldof and various others... so Animal Collective and Calexico were a perfect way to kick off the festival's final day.

I'm starting today with "Strawberry Jam", the new album by the Animal Collective, and it's quite a thing of joy. "For Reverend Green" is playing as I write (the Reverend Al, perhaps?), and it's pretty typical of the album (their seventh, perhaps). Over rippling noise and tribal patter, they lay a kind of kindergarten sing-song that has a passionate, ingenuous, euphoric quality. It's a pop song, born out of the avant-garde, and the Animal Collective are a pop group who've kept an experimental imperative. I love them.

Magnificent, shape-shifting psych-folk

New York weirdos make a strange, glorious noise

The release was initially axed because of a dispute over the remaster’s liner notes

Lots of new acts confirmed for this year's Brecon Beacon bash

No more quotes from Yeats landed in the comments box today, sadly, but there is a pretty interesting discussion about Super Furry Animals over by the "Hey Venus" blog.