Panda Bear, Person Pitch
Featured Album
Animal Collective bro goes solo for the third time, embracing his inner techno-freak-folk-Beach-Boy along the way.
Person Pitch may not sound like a singles album, but that's exactly what it is. Culled from 12-inches and compilation appearances, the songs on the album don't reflect the product of an intense period of recording; instead, the album is a general expression of what Noah Lennox has been up to in the years since his second album, 2004's Young Prayer (i.e., getting married, having a child, moving to Portugal). In other words, Lennox has been busy getting happy.
You can tell simply from the song titles — “Comfy in Nautica,” “Bros,” “Search for Delicious” — but the songs themselves confirm it: “Comfy” opens the shutters on the album by slowly revealing a storefront of chanting and hand-clapping backup singers behind Lennox's slow-motion singalong. “Take Pills” ups the tempo, gradually building its way from a waltzing lullaby into a looped verse from a forgotten Avalon/Funicello beach movie.
But the two sunny movements of "Take Pills" are trumped by “Good Girl/Carrots,” which finds time for organic trance, a nursery rhyme-esque middle and a narcotic dub coda. The undisputed highlight, though, is the twelve-minute “Bros,” which sounds built expressly for Julee Cruise, until Lennox rubs his eyes and the song goes widescreen. Judging by these results, we could stand to hear Lennox happy more often.
