This won’t be easy. You might get a better feel for Panda Bear’s music by looking at the cover art of Person Pitch than by reading my review. Considering said album cover depicts a group of oddly dressed children and a small variety of animals, anywhere from a llama to a tiger, all bathing in what appears to be a very crowded above ground swimming pool, you can imagine this is not your run of the mill release.
After careful deliberation, I found that the best way to describe this music is if you imagine the The Beach Boys forgot all about surfing, the beach, fun in the sun…California for that matter, and they met up with Syd Barrett, and then somehow came upon musical instruments from the past, but the past from a slightly different alternate universe, and then played what their mind under some very pleasant psychedelic told them to play. Or I could just say that Person Pitch is a solo-effort, the brainchild of Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear, from the New York experimental rock group Animal Collective. But both descriptions are just as unhelpful. And I don’t really know any Animal Collective, that was just what wikipedia told me.
I won’t single out any one track. This is one of those albums best appreciated in its entirety as a coherent artistic endeavor. Indeed, Person Pitch is an expression of high art, and knowingly so. It sets forth with a lo-fi march, and continues on to explore entirely unknown expanses of the musical universe through magical soundscapes and a symphonic elegance all throughout. Person Pitch is brilliantly composed, and yes that was either a rooster or a baby crying you heard in the background on the third track, and as is the case with most genius art, this might not be for everyone. I’m well aware I’ve done a piss poor job at describing this album, but if you give it a listen just how hard it is to describe this music in words. If you’d like me to pigeonhole Panda Bear, well, you might want to skip this one. But it’s so much better if you keep an open mind, because, in my humble opinion, Panda Bear offers something utterly unique in Person Pitch, a true modern masterpiece that defies categorization. This one’s real special, don’t miss out.
[Ed. note: I wrote this well before it was on top of so many critics' lists. More music writing forthcoming!]
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