“I’m just trying to figure things out right now,” Dibb says cryptically in regard to his absence from the biggest NYC show the group has ever played. In any other band, this half-in, half-out stance would be untenable. But as the group’s rabid fans know, Animal Collective has shape-shifting powers: Since its first album, the act has performed as a duo, trio or quartet, depending on nothing more complicated than where each guy happened to be in life, physically and otherwise. “People go looking for some huge drama, but we just take it as it comes,” says Weitz, who handles a lot of the group’s loops and samples but, like the others, is fluent on a pile of instruments. “All we focus on is the next album or tour, so if Josh wants to take a break, that’s cool.”

In Animal Collective, being easygoing is almost a necessity. The four childhood friends (who grew up in and around Baltimore) have spread out since making their name as an NYC band: Portner now lives in Chinatown with his Icelandic wife, following short stints in her homeland and Paris; Lennox, who cowrites most Animal Collective material with Portner, moved to Lisbon in 2004 to be with his Portuguese wife (they now have a young daughter); Weitz resides in Washington,  D.C., where he once did policy work on Capitol Hill; and Dibb? “I moved out of my last apartment in 2004,” he says. “All my living situations since then have been temporary.”

So it’s no surprise to learn that geography and place affect the Animal Collective sound at any given time. “Here Comes the Indian [from 2003] was made when we had a really crazy practice-space situation in New York,” says Portner of an album that mixed trippy noise and folk sounds. “The laid-back-ness of [2005’s] Feels comes from the fact that it was the first record we wrote after Noah went to Portugal,” where the taciturn Lennox says living is “mellow” and like “being on vacation.” The songs on Strawberry Jam—a freewheeling album that blends dizzying energy with disarming pop hooks—were written during a period of great uncertainty for the group; its popularity had steadily climbed for years just as its contract with the established label FatCat, which had issued the previous three albums, drew to a close. “Our shows were getting bigger, and things were getting to a point where we couldn’t control them,” Weitz says. “There were a lot of decisions to make after Feels,” adds Portner, his usual quizzical persona turning weighted. “Everyone was asking, ‘What are you guys going to do?’ And we didn’t know. So the feeling I associate most with Strawberry Jam would be one of confusion.” He pauses and glances at the others. “Kind of a dark confusion. The record’s about finding some positivity, and what makes sense to you within that feeling.”

It’s worth noting that when Portner talks about feelings, these aren’t the idle musings of some hippie. Strawberry Jam really does sound like four restlessly creative artists trying to impose order on the chaos of their lives: The opening song, “Peacebone,” begins with the flailings of an unhinged synth line; within 30 seconds, a drumbeat fades in and overtakes it, becoming the spine for the first of several improbably addictive tunes.

As with the band’s other albums, though, there’s little to be made of Strawberry Jam’s lyrics, collisions of emotions and visions that the four musicians have never spent much time discussing. But on the record’s best song, the surging “For Reverend Green,” one passage suggests that Portner found some of that sense he was seeking in the chaos: “Now I think it’s all right, we’re together now,” he sings, building to a nerve-tingling shriek. “Now I think it’s the best you’ve ever played it now / Now I think that’s all right, yeah!”

Strawberry Jam is out Tue 11 on Domino.  Animal Collective plays Webster Hall Sept 30 and Oct 1.