Panda Bear: Person Pitch

By: Alibastard | in: Music |

A friend has described the album as thus: “if you have lived a good life, this is what heaven sounds like.”

In a sublime, organic mix of Brian Wilson-style vocals and Misa Luba inspired exaultation, amplified by cathedral acoustics and tribally harmonized by a million of his own voice, Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) infinitely evades music categorization with cyclical, endearing and blissful rounds, delicately upheld by unintrusive loops and resinant sound samples. Proving again to be a musical disciple of lead Beach Boy Wilson and some youthful re-animator of Moon Dog, Panda Bear makes monumental soundscapes that nearly glitter, without losing any uniqueness in their presentation. And throughout, abstracted just perfectly, is Hawaiian folk, layered Latin percussion, madrigal crumbs, hypnotic grooves, all so disambiguated from their narrowly defined roots you can hardly call the music “collage”, even though it absolutely must be. A sonic alchemist from his first melodic experiments with friends Deakin and Avey Tare, Panda pulls no punches with his blazing ingenuity. At the same time, no decision seems overly cerebral, fakely strange or anything but absolutely intuitive. And yet the entire album, front to back, holds your attention in a bubbling milk of spiritual trip emotion, leaving the baggage of religion, drug culture or world music identifiers happily behind in order to ruminate peaceably about friendship, children and animals.

A crucial part of psychedelic choral pranksters Animal Collective, Panda Bear’s 7 song “Person Pitch” is one of the most effortlessly satisfied albums of recent memory, giving endless reasons for explosive jubilation. Circulating world rhythm without trying to call attention to it and submersing his verse in abstraction without trying for easy LSD allegory, Panda brings an enormous depth to his soothing cocauphony. You can easily envision each of these songs beginning behind a shower curtain, being deliciously savored in a studio for many months, and then let loose on the world like a jar of wild butterflies.

Comfy In Nautica

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Posted on April 16, 2007

Comments

6 Responses to “Panda Bear: Person Pitch”

Giovanna on April 16th, 2007 7:37 am

Hey, it looks like the Magical Mystery Tour is back! Splendid!

Charbarred on April 16th, 2007 7:51 am

I wonder if the low quality of the recordings is intentional…It actually has a very oldie feel to it…

blackswan on April 16th, 2007 9:41 am

wow… that was perhaps one of the best reviews i’ve read in a long time. keep up the good work mate.

Alibastard on April 16th, 2007 1:31 pm

Yeah - I definitely think there’s an intentional quality. Akin to Animal Collective’s match of muddy atmospheres, low-fi claps and fuzzy electronics. It sounds like a field recording of some yet undiscovered tribe, who’ve nested in the textures of old recordings. All those guys have a very curious relationship with their lyrics also - purposely ambiguous to faciliate the collaboration between singer and listener - playing off of people’s own associations to different words.