Animal Collective member Panda Bear (a.k.a. Noah Lennox) boldly returns with his long-awaited third solo record Person Pitch. Years in the making, Person Pitch marks a dramatic departure from Panda Bear's previous solo record Young Prayer. The acoustic instruments of Young Prayer have been replaced with samplers and electronics. Fusing Panda's dramatic life changes over the past few years (marriage, moving to Lisbon, becoming a father) with his ever-increasing sonic palette (standouts include Caetano Veloso, Berlin Techno, Scott Walker, and Kylie Minogue), Person Pitch is suffused with the kind of feel good modern toe-tapping pop that seems harder and harder to find these days. Paw Tracks feels that the passing of time will show Panda Bear's Person Pitch sitting alongside the great solo albums of Paul McCartney, George Michael, and Ghostface Killah. Luckily we don't have to wait.
Panda Bear
Person Pitch
[Paw Tracks; 2007]
Rating: 9.4
Inside the booklet included with Panda Bear's third solo album, Person Pitch, is a list of artists. The first four named are microhouse artists Basic Channel, Luomo, Dettinger, and Wolfgang Voigt. Maybe Noah Lennox, the man behind the Panda Bear, began this influence-naming exercise in a minimal techno state of mind. On the other hand, the inclusion of these four at the top could be significant. We always knew that the guys from his main band, Animal Collective, had an ear out for electronic music, but with Panda Bear, the impact of the DJ seems to run deeper. The music on Person Pitch sounds nothing like proper dance music, but the basic structure-- the use of dynamics, and above all, the sense of repetition-- draws heavily from that context. Which is particularly interesting considering what else is going on.
The Beach Boys always come up when talking about Panda Bear, and not just because he shares their fondness for certain melodic turns: When he allows the reverb to blanch his voice, Lennox can sound uncannily like Brian Wilson. This tunefulness gives Person Pitch an appeal that extends beyond just Animal Collective fans, but the way the songs are put together also gives them an unusual twist. Producers in Brian Wilson's era never worked like this, sampling old songs and instruments and spinning them in wheels of sound that seem like they could go forever. Most of this record consists of intricately constructed, heavily layered, and highly repetitive loops on top of which Lennox sings oddly familiar and touching melodies. But despite its grounding in guitar pop, Person Pitch isn't likely to be mistaken for the work of a band. It sounds like what it is: one guy alone in his bedroom trolling through music history, picking and choosing bits to make something deeply personal and all his own.
The repetition of the music here, though probably engendered by computer, has a strange analog quality. You can almost see the turntables rotating on the opening "Comfy in Nautica", which loops Lennox's sung "ah"'s and handclaps to evoke ritual campfire music, while the deep reverb on his voice puts us in the same liturgical headspace found on his very different acoustic record Young Prayer from 2004. "Take Pills" repeats a tambourine and twangy guitar during its slower opening section while industrial samples that sound like car parts being followed down an assembly line fill in the vast spaces. The field recordings take an aquatic turn on the track's second half, as Lennox picks up his acoustic guitar and moves the party to the beach, singing "I don't want for us to take pills anymore" to the kind of effortlessly melodic line that once expressed thoughts like "da doo ron ron."
Given the presence of such tremendously catchy pop moments on Person Pitch, the record's indulgences feel completely earned. The flurry of tabla that opens the extended "Good Girl/Carrots" sticks out at first but makes sense once Lennox gets the hectic dub chaos out of his system and settles into the second section's hypnotic tune. When the song edges become wispy and shapeless on "I'm Not", which blends Lennox's voice with an indistinct droning synth, the mood and thrust of the album gives the track the appropriate context. "Search for Delicious", reminiscent of the glowing ambient drift of Lennox's side project Jane, won't leave the drone alone, repeatedly knocking Lennox's singing off track like a clumsy but well-meaning drunk. Music of such warped processing would be a specialist's item, but as a breather here, before the simple and childlike music-box closer "Ponytail", it feels right.
I still haven't talked about the 12-and-a-half-minute "Bros", the astonishing track that serves as the album's centerpiece. It's here that Person Pitch's repetition and DJ's sense of timing are most apparent, while Lennox's songwriting hits a melodic peak. The first few bars turn to the golden age of 60s and 70s radio, with some rattling percussion chipped from Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and a chiming acoustic guitar that could be pulled from the Beach Boys' "Girl Don't Tell Me". But as the loops pass on "Bros", the song begins to seem like a glorious travelogue, a journey along a path where all the music's influences are visible along the roadside: the Wilson Brothers in their pinstripe shirts, or the queasy phasing and random sound effects-- a subway, people on a roller coaster, a baby crying-- of Lee "Scratch" Perry. When Panda begins to chant halfway through, we hear an echo of his main band, and when the neo-Latin piano comes in during the latter portion, transforming the track from internally-focused meditation to outwardly-beaming celebration, we get an image of Derrick May's classic techno anthem "Strings of Life" busting into a DJ set to make everyone go crazy.
Person Pitch as a whole-- and "Bros" in particular-- evokes the sunshine of Lennox's adopted Lisbon, Portugal home. But it's the kind of light best experienced with eyes closed-- with the rays filtered through eyelids, turning the world into various shades of red and orange. You can feel the warmth pouring out of the music and see abstractions of its inspirations-- that whole long list and more-- as they cycle around again and again and again. Five of these seven songs have been released in various forms on singles and 12"s previously, so the exceptionally high quality of this music isn't a surprise to those who have been following Panda Bear closely. Still, hearing it all together in one place and listening to it all at one time is both overwhelming and inspirational.
-Mark Richardson, March 22, 2007
Review by Ned Raggett
Starting an album with a clattering of industrial rhythms sliding into a huge clap-and-stompalong with angelic vocals and what sounds like the Brotherhood of Man on a vocal loop tip not far removed from Suicide or Laurie Anderson is one way to make a mark. The fact that Panda Bear, aka Noah Lennox himself, sings like Brian Wilson and produces his voice to sound like it is another, though it has to be said that it just makes his Animal Collective membership all the more clear at this point. Person Pitch is very much an end product of a variety of musical trends in whatever can be called indie rock in the early 21st century -- big-sounding, absolutely dedicated to texture and sonic playfulness, and somehow aiming to make a lot of interesting ideas seem kinda flat. There's no question there's both an audience for Panda Bear's work and the sounds he's playing around with, and to his considerable credit he creates a series of moody and memorable loops throughout. Songs like "Take Pills" and "Good Girl" are miles away from the rhythm-by-numbers of many of Panda Bear's contemporaries; importantly, after so many bands that just want to sound like late-'60s Beach Boys lock, stock and barrel, the fact that there's a recognition that production and beat technology didn't stay frozen in time stands out. At its best, with the song "Bros," there's a beautiful transcendence that lives up to all the promise that has surrounded Panda Bear's work, the song slowly but surely evolving into a fantastic epic that could easily stand on its own as an EP. Still, the sweetness is almost too gooey, and what should be providing a healthy contrast ends up dragging the best instrumental moments down more than once, almost literally getting in the way of the striking sonic collages. It may be heresy to some, but conceivably Person Pitch would be at its best if it were strictly instrumental.
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