Avey Tare is a member of Animal Collective, the band behind giddy, rapturous and wonderful Merriweather Post Pavillion (2009). Down There certainly contains some of Merriweather’s sonic tropes –  prominent beats, trippy loops, tribal experimentalism – but these elements are considerably more intangible.

This album is more distant, more introspective: the wide-eyed wonder of Merriweather is dampened, muffled by surrounding fluid. Its rhythms are central but jerky, nervous tics rather than foot-stomping primal dancing. ‘Lucky 1’ contains bass frequencies found in the dirtiest dubstep, but you don’t want to dance. ‘Cemeteries’ is a calm meditative wash, tempering the jittery clatter around it. The ‘Beach Boys’-style close harmony is present but ghostly, quivering, as if sung in a vast watery cavern.

It sounds like a carnival taking place beneath the depths of dark, misty marshland, an extraordinary sound world, smudgey, damp, dripping - somehow alternating between nightmarish and soporific. Difficult stuff, certainly – but after some initial effort, it really is entrancing.