Panda Bear – Person Pitch
Paw Tracks
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 exaltation, 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 resonant 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 cacophony. 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.
– Alibastard
Originally posted on ThePlugg.com