Panda Bear

One Liner: Influential indie/chillwave piece of Animal Collective
Wikipedia Genre: psychedelic pop, electronic
Home: NYC (via Baltimore, although now in Portugal, so, whatever)

Poster Position: Second Quarter - Line 12
Day: Friday
Both Weekends.

Thoughts: I feel like I have heard about Panda Bear for years, but never really known what he has going on.  I similarly never remember listening to Animal Collective, so I have missed out on his original band as well as his current thing.  Well, no longer.

Noah Lennox started using the name Panda Bear in the late 90's when he added a drawn picture of a panda to the cover of a tape he made in his bedroom.  He grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, went to Boston University to major in religion, and ended up in New York City.  Since 2004, he has lived in Portugal.  When he got to New York in 2000, he and some of the others from Animal Collective shifted that band from a loose, long-distance thing into a more formal band and started releasing music.  They released five albums from 2000 to 2007, when Panda Bear released his first real solo disc - 2007's Person Pitch.  But then they both just kept on doing their thing concurrently.

I fired up his new album, and it sounds like the Beach Boys are still making lush and catchy pop harmonies in my office.  I absolutely love it.  But I want to go back in time and dig in on this guy, so let's go to the beginning instead.

2007's Person Pitch still sounds kind of like it was influenced by the Beach Boys and that sort of spacey harmony thing, except that it also wiggles with samples and electronica involved.  The album opener is the top track on it - here is "Comfy in Nautica," with 4.8 million streams.

If the Beach Boys had acquired an army and asked them to march upon Malibu, this would have been the sound as they goose-stepped up the Pacific Coast Highway.  "Take Pills" burbles with random noise as the underlying song seems piped through a distant tunnel.  "Bros" also has an echo-ey quality, but shines with the trippy harmonies of a Pet Sounds b-side, until it goes into the 12 minute trippy freakout of a Sargeant Pepper's b-side.  There are nice little ideas and sounds in here, but I'd say that the overall feel of the album is stressful and weird for me.  Wikipedia claims that this album inspired the chillwave genre and numerous other acts.  This ain't the type of chillwave I want to hear then.  Also interesting, to me at least, that multiple things I read called this album highly acclaimed and trailblazing and whatever, and yet the top streamer has less than 5 million listens.  Doesn't feel especially acclaimed if no one listens.

I asked a friend who is in to chill music what he thought of Panda Bear, and his response was something like "the songs I love, I really love, but much of it is not great."  He then sent me a link to "Good Girl/Carrots," saying that if you would just forward about three minutes in the song is amazing.  But it sucks to have to forward a chunk of a song to get to the goods.  Oh well!

2011's Tomboy also comes on with those trippy harmonies and Brian Wilson vibe, but there is more straight guitar in the mix.  "Slow Motion" almost has a hip hop vibe to it.  Hahaha - I was literally coming here to say that a song sounded like a hellacious drone track, only to find that the name of it is "Drone."  Spot on, Panda Bear, spot on.  That song sucks!  Like the first one, the album is up and down, but none of the stream counts point to any particular hit here.

In here, the Bear appeared on one of Daft Punk's songs from that Random Access Memories album that won all the Grammys and reintroduced Daft Punk to the world.  So, despite it being a collaboration, Pandaman has himself a Grammy.

2015's awesomely titled Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper is his highest charting album, reaching #2 on the US Indie charts and #34 on the regular US charts.  He keeps the weirdness alive here too, with the layered harmonies and electronica sounds.  "Mr Noah" is louder and harder than most of the other stuff though, while "Tropic of Cancer" is a harp-fueled cloud.  "Come to Your Senses" is almost poppy.  Just feels all over the place.  But the big streamer from it is "Boys Latin" with 11.3 million streams.

It sort of loses the beat there at the start - that is weird.  it's like I am listening to two songs at once.  I just paused it to make sure I wasn't.  Are any of those vocals actually words?  Trippy, brah.  Here is what I will give the guy with this album, I am genuinely curious to hear what is coming next.  You literally cannot predict what the next song will be like the first time you hear this disc.  I don't know if it is all good, but at least it is interesting for sure.

2019's Buoys starts out with a song that reminds me of the new Radiohead style of strangely sparse songs, although this one also has water drop sounds interspersed throughout for reasons.  He is using effects on his voice here that are kind of trippy and remind me of the times that Vampire Weekend has used the same.  No big songs here.

2022's Reset (which is done with someone or something called Sonic Boom) heads back towards the Beach Boys angle.  And like that last disc, you really never know what is coming next.  Spanish flamenco influence?  Sure.  Morose folk?  Of course.  "Edge of the Edge" is probably my favorite on here.  No songs on here crack 2 million either.  I am really interested to know how the songs from the new album sound so amazing in comparison to much of this.  He also does an extended version of this and then a "dub" version too.  No one listened to that.

Finally, we get to 2025's Sinister Grift.  It is rad.  I feel like he took the Beach Boy harmonies and the Tame Impala usage of that and wrapped them into a new set of tracks.  I don't know why this one registers so cleanly with me, but I think it is really great.  Still kind of trippy and weird, but also a more normal-ish indie rock record with guitars and drums and whatever.  Top track as of now is "Defense," featuring the elusive Cindy Lee.  1.6 million streams.

Nice groove underlying that action.  Ooooooh, wait, a Tiny Desk from 4 weeks ago!?!  Fresh Tiny Desk!!!

Reminds me of Car Seat Headrest at times.  The explainer on that says that this is the first time Panda Bear has toured with a full band since he started doing solo action.  Two songs from the new disc ("Ferry Lady" and "Defense") and then a deep cut from a 2009 Animal Collective disc.  Great harmonies.  Definitely just seems like a regular ass indie band though - they stripped off the weird stuff.  Which I dig!  Let's go do it with the Panda!