Much of the US is currently in the winter doldrums: post-holiday days with short daylight, frigid winds, and often exhaust-painted snowdrifts. I happen to like winter, but even I will acknowledge it can be depressing. Yet it is amazing what mood alteration music can be. Panda Bear’s second solo disc, Person Pitch, is a joyous album with the capacity to evoke uplifting in listeners. Many of you will know Panda Bear (aka Noah Lennox) from his day job in Animal Collective, yet he also released a lovely (albeit incredibly mellow) album on his own in 2004, which deals with his father’s death, called Young Prayer. If you know and liked Young Prayer, you will likely enjoy Person Pitch, although it is nowhere near as somnambulistic. Rather, it is positively happy. If anything, it is closer to Mr. Bear’s work in Animal Collective, though not quite as spastic. Person Pitch is a strange amalgam of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and Paul Simon’s Graceland filtered through a sampler. This may sound like an uncomfortable mix, but the first four songs are incredibly good—musically unique with melodies sharp enough to cut a penny.
The dirty little secret of Animal Collective, honing their chops for art school audiences, playing with avant bands like Black Dice at offbeat venues like Anthology Film Archives, is that they were less hipster than hippy. As the noise of their early recordings fades and their drum circle aesthetic at live shows increases, it seems the Collective is becoming more at home being crunchy. While this doesn’t always work, Panda Bear has extracted some of the most dynamic influences of the patchouli set to form his own template. While Young Prayer was primarily a guitar and soft-voice folk entity, Panda Bear effectively throws everything in the mix here, creating a tuneful mix of organic and processed instruments along the lines of Manitoba/Caribou. And while Animal Collective’s over-reliance on delay pedals on their vocals can be tiresome, Panda Bear usually lets his voice shine through here, often in glorious harmonies or African-inspired chorals.
Things start swimmingly with “Comfy in Nautica,” which is probably what Brian Wilson would write if he were coming of age today. It is saturated with rich choral chants and claps while Panda Bear’s voice sings a great pop line. “Take Pills” has an extending found-sound introduction as Panda Bear fades in a vocal line, but the song really takes off when it takes an unexpected left turn around the two and a half minute mark, mixing a toe-tapping campfire singalong amongst the looped guitar and water sounds. “Bros” is back to the Wilson-esque pop ditty, but it also shifts into an acoustic rave-up around the six-minute mark. At over twelve minutes, it’s probably overkill but the kind you don’t really mind. Things level off from this incredible beginning of the album. Another long track, “Good Girl,” takes the Burning Man freakout too literally at its beginning, though eventually settles into an off-kilter dub groove with ice cream truck chimes. Somehow, it’s so odd that it works. It’s a bit of a shame that Person Pitch can’t sustain its astronomical beginnings, but it does manage to make a compelling and uplifting listen over its seven tracks that might just make your down days seem less so.
|