What does mastering have to do with any of it? They’ve spoken multiple times that Marta’s role was to recreate the mix that they had already done in Luna to define it a little more.

It really sounds like you should be more upset about the performance than anything that Marta did. It’s important to get it right at the source, and if you’re not a fan of the performance, no mixing is going to help that.

Here’s a link to them talking about how the album was mixed:

https://reddit.com/r/indieheads/comments/syw9fm/_/hy0b6kt/?context=1

And this interview with her from Tape Op:

Q:I also listened to Time Skiffs by Animal Collective. I imagine you had rough mixes that had that gauzy reverb presence on the vocals, where they are sort of separate from the music. Is that correct?

Marta: With that, I spoke mostly with Brian [Weitz, a.k.a. “Geologist”]. We were always in touch about how elements in the mix should sound, and what the intent with the music was. I’m a huge fan of their music, and so I felt I had these songs I used to dance to as a teenager ingrained in me. When I was mixing it, I felt, “It needs to feel like Animal Collective,” because they have such a huge span of work. But I would also think, “Maybe the bass could have a little bit more definition.” There are so many elements to their tracks. They’re so rich. I wanted everything to have its own space, and everything to be very defined. I wanted the group vocals to have that quality of feeling like one vocal.

Q:True, right.

Marta: Gel them together and have the percussion all around it. When I mix, I almost feel like I try and visualize it in a 3D depth and height. One of my favorite things I learned when I was studying sound was the phantom center of the two speakers. It truly feels like I can create these prisms of 3D moving within stereo. That’s how I see it in my head. I want the bass to be the foundation. Sometimes it can be mono and sometimes it can be stereo, as long as it feels good in mono. Then I can build upon that. Here’s where I put the beat: The kick drum, and then I put the snare across it, the vocals round it up, and the percussion is a little bit on top of the vocals. Everything needs to feel focused and cohesive. That’s how I approached that. I wanted the experience for the listeners and the band to be immersive and to tip the hat to all their previous records, but also to have mixes that would feel like a step forward.