Panda Bear
Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper
[Domino Records]
In 2011, Tomboy marked another left turn in a (side-)career full of them for Panda Bear, stepping away from the phosphorous sampledelic fun of Person Pitch and the heartbroken howl of Young Prayer (themselves a pair not easy to square off). This time around Panda Bear meets the Grim Reaper seems, at times, like the first time Noah Lennox’s solo career has taken two steps in (relatively) the same direction, by retaining something of the structure of Tomboy – that is, a conventional album amount of distinct songs – and the production services of Spaceman 3’s Sonic Boom. But unlike Tomboy, there’s little atmosphere building here. Songs like Come To Your Senses, Crosswords and lead single Mr Noah spring straight from the traps and into typically playful verse melodies over instantly lurching grooves that mesh sampled breakbeats with squelching synths.
The record’s back end takes reflective turn with two sparser tracks which feel like the emotional centre of the album. Lennox repurposes a Tchaikovsky harp arpeggio to form the base for the deeply affecting melody on Tropic of Cancer, indicative of his masterly way with a short snippet of found sound. Selfish Gene, likewise, is gorgeously simple. As Lennox’s voice winds over a puttering synth pulse until a repeated refrain of ‘You’ll trip up again/You’ll get up again’, you realise the common thread all along is Lennox’s combination of uniquely exotic soundworlds with a tender, longing introspection.
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Check out our interview with Noah about the genesis of Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper here.
Words: Ian Lamont
Illustration: Hugo Oliveira
