MP3: “Last Night At The Jetty” – http://www.paw-tracks.com/jetty.mp3
Panda Bear is the project of Animal Collective member Noah Lennox. Tomboy, his long-awaited fourth album as Panda Bear, and follow-up to Person Pitch, is now complete and will be released on his own label, Paw Tracks on April 12, 2011.
Paw Tracks is pleased to present a listening party for Tomboy on Feb. 16 in NYC at Le Poisson Rouge Gallery (158 Bleecker St.) – there will be two separate listening sessions, one at 6pm that is open to all ages (rsvp to Guidetomboyallageslisteningparty@gmail.com ) and one at 7:30pm that is 21+ (rsvp to tomboy21overlisteningparty@gmail.com )
Over the past six months or so, Panda Bear has released a series of vinyl singles on different labels, including Domino, Paw Tracks, and Fat Cat, with the final single forthcoming on Kompakt. The Tomboy album is a compilation of these songs, along with new ones that have not been released. Additionally, all the songs have been added to and newly mixed with help from Sonic Boom to give the album a wonderfully rich and warm sound.
The cover art for all of the singles leading up to Tomboy, as well as the album cover art (pictured above) are by Scott Mou. Mou is also a member of another band, Jane, with Lennox.
More about Tomboy:
Both as a member of Animal Collective and as the solo artist, Panda Bear, Noah Lennox spent the aughts helping redefine the aesthetics and methodology of experimental and independent music. With work ranging from splayed but lyrical noise, florid acoustic arrangements, and guitar-centric psychedelia, he and his bandmates have covered a vast musical territory that blurs the line between pop and experimentalism.
But while Panda Bear and Animal Collective have garnered acclaim with each successive sonic venture, their music really started to take hold when they began working with electronics. In 2007, Lennox released the milestone Person Pitch, a mélange of loopy samples, ethereal textures, and dubby echoes all bound together by his soulful tenor. Hailed by many as an instant classic, the album’s influence was almost immediately recognizable. He continued work with Animal Collective, releasing another landmark album Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2009.
While the interval since Person Pitch has seen plenty of work from the Animal Collective camp, Panda Bear activity has been rare. He has toured sparingly, done intermittent remix work, and appeared on a few peers’ releases while rumors circulated about his next full-length, Tomboy. The second half of 2010 saw the record’s first offerings: a string of 7″s containing tracks from the album, each released on a different label. With one more due before the album’s release on April 12th, the singles have revealed Tomboy‘s palette while helping Lennox gauge his progress and focus on individual songs.
Recorded at his studio in Lisbon, Tomboy sees Lennox stepping away from the sample-based parameters of his previous record and incorporating more guitar and synthesizer. Still prevalent, though, is the interest in texture that made Person Pitch such a dense record; crashing waves and cheering crowds bounce against the gurgling arpeggios and give the tracks an immense sense of space. Soaked in reverb and punctuated with inflections of delay, the album’s drums reveal a dub influence which gives them a visceral punch that lingers after each hit. Lennox’s lofty, self-harmonizing vocals smooth out the songs, and Sonic Boom’s mixing gives the work a large dynamic range. With Tomboy, Lennox has created a more plaintive atmosphere, but in accordance with the conflicting image of its title, the highs of the album balance out its lows. The record, massive in its span of emotion, genre, and sound, is the welcome return of one of the most prolific and consistent audio pioneers in recent memory.
Panda Bear
Tomboy
(Paw Tracks)
Street Date: April 12, 2011
Track list:
01 You Can Count on Me
02 Tomboy
03 Slow Motion
04 Surfer’s Hymn
05 Last Night at The Jetty
06 Drone
07 Alsatian Darn
08 Scheherezade
09 Friendship Bracelet
10 Afterburner
11 Benfica
PANDA BEAR LINKS:
MySpace – http://www.myspace.com/pandabear
Press Materials – http://www.paw-tracks.com/tomboypresspage.html