Best known as a founding member of experimental pop group Animal Collective, David Portner’s (aka Avey Tare) psychedelic vision contributed to both Animal Collective’s highly influential output, a healthy solo catalog, and several warped side projects. In downtime from his main band, Portner has released records as wildly imagined as the completely backwards 2007 album Pullhair Rubeye and the more straightforward voicings of multifacted songwriting like 2019’s Cows on Hourglass Pond.

Portner was born on April 24, 1979. He grew up near Baltimore and met his future fellow Animal Collective mates Noah Lennox, Josh Dibb, and Brian Weitz in high school, where they bonded over shared musical obsessions for Pavement, the Grateful Dead, and various strains of psychedelic music. Along with future BARR leader Brendan Fowler, the teenaged Portner, Weitz, and Dibb started a band called Automine, and went so far as to release a 7″ single before leaving high school. In 2000, Portner worked with Lennox on Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished, an album credited to Avey Tare & Panda Bear but later recognized as the first official output of Animal Collective. This album set the precedent for Animal Collective’s nebulous lineup, as various members would sit out some albums or contribute heavily to others. Portner moved to New York City to attend NYU, and the other members of the collective soon joined him, with the band playing more shows and touring with like-minded noise rock acts like Black Dice, Lightning Bolt, and the Cranium.