Good (Friday) Times with Panda Bear

Noah Lennox passed me on his way across the pelican crossing in Brixton. Hood up and inconspicuous simply blending with the comings and going of South London. In some ways Noah Lennox takes this on to the stage tonight. There is an effortless in his performance as he creates a psychedelic electronic storm through repetition, clipped beats and sonic dissonance.  There is no real interaction with the crowd until the end and little after the encore. Whilst in front of us and clearly central to all proceedings Panda Bear seems larger than his lone figure. The whole performance commanded from his workbench of electronic wizardry knits with the huge LED screens positioned either side and behind to present Panda Bear as something futuristic and otherworldly.

Today is Good Friday and Panda Bear is back in London to celebrate the release of Buoys at the Electric Ballroom in Brixton. After a thorough search on the door I make my way in to the venue – it’s dimly lit and blurred. It does not have the same vibrations as last year at the Village Underground in Shoreditch. The crowd slowly fills up for this early start – Panda Bear will start at 8.30. Early evening electronics for the soul served up for this diverse and disparate crowd who have found themselves in South London. There are Americans of all shapes and sizes, young emo kids, multicultural hipsters,  a couple from Scotland, a young guy who’d travelled from California and healthy LGBT+ mixing as one for the sounds of one man and one part Animal Collective.

Noah arrives without fanfare and checks his instruments before we check his track record. (Check the record – check the guy’s track record)  Plugging in headphones and turning things on there is a sudden burst of the opening of ‘My Girls’. He can’t possibly be teasing us?  It stops and that snatch is all we will hear. Yet in many ways Panda Bear’s brand of electronica is captured in that phrase. He deals in repetition and distortion, out of chaos and never ending reverb emerges beauty and fragility with supersonic bass shaking stomps to unite the floor as one nation under a (digital) groove.  Tonight we are mainly treated to the delights of Panda Bear’s last two wonderful records, the vinyl only release ‘A Day with the Homies’ and the new long player ‘Buoys’.  Through a harmony fuelled opening of simple keyboard drone emerges ‘Dolphin’ with its water drop beats and robotic vocal codas as Noah intones that he is ‘gonna switch of the screen – unblinded’ as the visuals power up behind and at his sides in what will be a profound light and video accompaniment throughout the show. Frazzled dancers, liquid drops and pulsating static merge with op art lines and symmetry and lysergic dreams and nightmarish grins as all that is solid melts into air (well light – but you knew where I was going?) throughout the whole set. They do not detract but add to the chemistry as we are exposed to the finer moments of his recent work, Dolphins becomes ‘Nod to the Folks’ and the set lists switches between the new album and its previous release.

Then within the inter song sound swathes comes the familiar strains of ‘Comfy in Nautica’. Where it started for me. Person Pitch was my first encounter with Panda Bear and I instantly fell for its Beach Boy wonk and skronk. As Noah urged us to ‘try to remember always, always to have a good time’ it struck me how wonderful a lyricist he is. Songs are constructed and delivered with words that hint at situations of danger, confront confusions and question it all. Panda bear is a wonderful singer his range and fearlessness in moving through scales and tones to create the most effective sonic delivery of any other singer currently on the scene surely deserves wider exposure. He’s a harmony group in one. A pocket sized Beach B Buoy. Words delivered in harmony with himself should be heard by more people and its evident that tonight isn’t quite the sell out I had expected. The top part of the venue is closed yet it doesn’t result in a lacklustre performance despite the early start.

Panda Bear continues to craft the tunes with a nod to his tussle with the Grim Reaper as he plays only one number from that album tonight in the form of ‘Crosswords’. The songs from ‘Buoys’ are greeted with cheers and yelps and even some air fist pumps (there was a guy from Chicago there – he dug it maaaan). ‘Token’ with its repetitive motif of guitar and soaring climax of longing as Noah repeats ‘ I want to tell you that I want you’ is astounding in it’s simplicity but delivered through a clear full on PA hits you hard and right in the gut. I was wondering how the sparseness of ‘Buoys’ wuld play out in a larger venue as I’d spent most of my time with this long player in isolation and headphones. The album has this return to  the ‘real’ but its cut up samples of guitars mixed with the open and honest recording of Noah up close felt incredible personal in its approach. It stills feels incredibly personal up close tonight even with jutaxposed visuals and full on volume. Buoys is a tough one. It can hold its own when turned up loud. 

Panda Bear is a tough buoy.

As the set builds to the final song we are treated to a new number as yet not released, ‘Playing the Long Game’. In its heavy bass and repetitive beats Panda Bear is forever reinventing and representing sound in his time away from Animal Collective. His work is truly original and uncluttered by the modern yet by its very existence repositions itself as the most modern and urgent music being made in the 21^st Century. As if Van Dyke Parks and AFX collaborated whilst Eno recorded the results.

Panda Bear thanks us for coming, thanks us for listening and thanks the support band and is gone. Lights power down. And we begin to clap and shout.

There is a fleeting return. 

Two songs. One from Tomboy, a sublime ‘Last Night of The Jetty’ with its beats turned to sledgehammer blows as Lennox asks ‘didn’t we have a good time?’  Followed by the bowel quaking ear wrecking sub bass bombing of ‘Sunset’. The crowd moves in unison, tripped and blissed out as sonics merge with soul and we all feel uplifted.  

Then Panda Bear is gone.

I don’t believe in God. I do believe in Panda Bear. It had been a Good Friday.





Panda Bear's site can be found here: https://pandabearofficial.com/

Here is Comfy from Nautica from the evening: courtesy of Lucas Moreira



Here is the video to 'Token' from 'Buoys' 

Panda Bear was loose in London

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I have enjoyed the thrills of live sounds for years and years. There’s something magical about the experience of seeing something you committed to your memory through repeated revolutions on record players suddenly becoming real for your ears in a building with the minds that made it there in front of you.

I can remember most of the gigs, shows, sets, concerts – what ever you wish to call them – that I have attended - not the literal evening but sensations, snippets, sounds and smells that conjure up a moment or an emotion that was lodged way in my brain. Fleeting images of my heroes played out in mind films on the surface of my eyes.

Panda Bear at the Village Underground on Tuesday is now firmly lodged in the cerebral mass of synapses and connections. I am a fan of Panda Bear – you all should be a fan of Panda Bear – because there’s a beauty within those electronic collages that soothes the soul.

For those unaccustomed to Panda Bear – he is actually Noah Lennox – and one part Animal Collective. I came to Animal Collective after listening to Panda Bear – not the other way round.  I like Animal Collective but I like Panda Bear more. Each tune he has released has wrapped itself around my heart and made me smile that little longer – not that they are all happy tunes mind.

I arrive at the Village Underground a little early. So I head off for a drink in graffiti covered buildings and hip surroundings.  I buy a drink. It costs £5.80.  Ridiculous really.  I think The Smiths t-shirt I bought at one of my first concerts cost £5.

Some time the city is out to rip you off.

Panda Bear is playing in East London tonight – but this is no rip off – this is not a rock n roll swindle.  And this is his one date in the city as he waltzes through Europe and beyond. There is only one day to spend with this homie. Not even a day – it’s only a night.

But I’m glad I spent it with you.

Proceedings begin with Maria Reis who produces sounds that are both haunting and jaunty – there’s a popness to her MBV meets Eno tunes.  The crowd are warm in their appreciation and the cavernous building  - with it’s bar on the side making it difficult to see the stage  - feels intimate as she plays to the swelling numbers.

And then we wait for PB.  I have managed to find a spot way down the front about two bodies back and to the right of the stage. The crowd is hip and youthful – but I don’t care - I am an old man taking space from the youth. I dig this too. 

I wait for the arrival of Noah.  At 9.30 the lights dim and Panda Bear enters the room – he takes off his coat- keeps on his hoodie - picks up the microphone and begins to create sonic alchemy. Tonight’s ‘show’ and to be fair it is a ‘show’ is full of repetitive visuals and strobed lights and screens there to add and support the wonderful sounds of the Bear’s workbench.  I’m intrigued by the workbench – it looks cobbled together with MDF to hold instruments that shake the very soul.  Noah works this table of instruments(?) throughout the set – sounds blending and growing from his array of special units and keys – drones become fragments of songs and layers of sound build upon each other into this beautiful digital cacophony offset with sweet harmonies and honest feelings.

To be honest it’s hard making out what I’m listening to – I never got hold of the last vinyl only ‘A Day with the Homies’ but I guess this is what I’m listening to interspersed with songs from when he took on the Grim Reaper and won. There’s a few older ones too all presented with a backdrop of a pulsating dancing woman in garish make up and flowing dresses. It’s a trip maaaaaaan. A real mind bending trip. But the audience are here for the ride – there’s a group behind me bellowing the words and dancing with wild abandon – we are here to worship at Lennox’s sonic altar – we are his disciples – which is apt because it’s just after Easter that he walks amongst us.

The night develops through each sample and repetitive drone with the Panda adding vocals as loops become recognizable tunes  - it’s hard to know where to clap – so I just grin throughout. The new tunes are harder in terms of beats – there’s elements of hip hop, drum and bass and the inevitable dubstep – but it doesn’t feel bandwagon jumping more an evolving landscape of sound that Panda Bear inhabits. The set consisted of this according to setlist.com

Dolphin (New Song)

Flight

Boys Latin

I Know I Don't (New Song)

Part of the Math

Cosplay (No Outro)

Cranked (New Song)

Shepard Tone

Crosswords

Home Free (New Song)

Selfish Gene

Cosplay Demo (Outro)

The end of the set before the encore slowly built into a huge pulsating bass drone with vomiting visuals and strobes. It was heavy work. But there’s absolute heavy soul in his squelching electronic psychedelia.

Lennox is not a dance musician  - but we sway in unison at times to his kinetic rhythms and futuroid B(each) Boy singing – because after all  his voice remains his secret weapon. It’s what everything hangs on –and follows this incredible set with an encore of three incredible works  - Sabbath (New Song), Crescendo (New Song) and finally Sunset with each one getting better than the last.  We are uplifted and dancing – and then he is gone.

Coat on and out the building – well probably not - but I want to afford him some rock star status – not that he is that at all but he deserves to held up a little higher than he is. It’s hard to find music that resonates and connects in this digital forever streaming age and Panda Bear is making incredible tunes that will stand up and be re -evaluated in future years.

I’m glad Panda Bear played at the Village Underground and you will be glad next time he plays – because you’ll be there too.

Here's a Part of the Math from France - I can't find any videos from London - but you get the idea. 

The death and possible rebirth of pop: Animal Collective in hip London times.

I can't think how music actually exists these days. None of it makes sense. I think the time is right for bailing out. I don't actually understand it anymore. It's beyond me. I tried getting a handle on it and then it kind of fell away. There's too much out there - it just rings and sings and buzzes and fuzzes and i don't get it anymore. I don't know where to start listening and hearing - i don't know what I like anymore. You can stream this and that - you can start here and here and end up there - you can't settle for long enough to just listen. 

And then you can't write because some fucker is putting it up with samples and soundscapes - podcasts and v-logs - I haven't time for all of that

I just wanted to write, about bands that moved me - but it isn't enough - in a stream of making this pay for that and that 

I ended up at The Troxy this week ( or last week) I was there to see Animal Collective - I'm a fan of Panda Bear really - but fell in love with the electronic analogue hub and rub of the collective along the way. I wasn't a fan way back then - but i am now - post post merriweather and all that. 

So i arrived - all excited - Painting with being one of the best things I've heard this year - in a while to be honest (bar anything related to Euros Childs - because - well he's kind of it really - absolutely guaranteed to affect and effect in this house) The Animal Collective animal truly is a work of wonder and fun - all switched harmony and playfulness - pop and psychedelic in the truest form. 

So I arrive - rushed and unkempt - late afternoon meetings about this and that rolling still in my mind - grab (my coat - grab my hat) a sausage roll from Sainsburys - i live off pork - animal selective maaaaaaaan.  Eventually getting to the change of venue - pack them all in on one night only (the Bush was closed) and made my way upstairs - unrestricted - but difficult to hold down a seat when you're on your own - which is pretty much the case these days in rock venues - in any venue really - i don't talk much - it all comes out on here - in here - another beer? 

Which brings me to this. 

A band from the stable of PC Music - the pin up star or some such shit GTOFY - opening - supporting - or ruining the night before the collective came and semi- saved the idea that music is something to fucking care about.  You see - I don't fucking get it anymore - this Verrucae Salt on crack routine - this Aqua meets the Chipmunks thing - this being taken the piss out of thing. This is not cutting edge - ironic - we can say racist things and just laugh it off - this is the fuckers who Jarvis fucking warned us about now making music. They don't even pretend to mix with the common people. Cameron's fucking daughters - this isn't some fucker with dreads dabbling in reggae - this is cunts with trust funds making a mockery of all that came before - they are despised - not misunderstood - absolutely despised - and when Avey Tare gave it the big shout out - part of me couldn't really give a fuck anymore. 

I have gone beyond my limits. I have had enough. 

But to do justice to the beauty of Animal Collective - I will write this down. I know I'll write again - but it's kind of an audience of one. To be honest if it's today's pop pickers reading this - they wouldn't get past the first paragraph - they'd want this post as an Instagram pic with filters or some such shit. 

But for now I'll try and recall the beauty and wonder of Animal Collective - an inventive and resourceful band of lysergic experimenters and adventurers. Arriving to greets and whoops Animal Collective settled behind banks of electronic cables and dials and faders and keys - alongside a drummer too - he was a little higher up beating majestic time and rhythm to the sonic tinkering down below - Panda Bear on the left (audience wise) Avey on the right and Geologist right in the middle - headlight on and easily spotted. 

Opening with Natural Selection their set slowly grew into a shimmering bleep and harmony monster - controlled and indulgent but appropriate and exciting all rolled into one. At first I wasn't sure how the building was holding up to the sound theatrics - whether the vocals were drowning the melody but slowly and surely they started to meld into one organic thumping beast of a pure pop experience - an animal in itself. Blending skillful harmonic interplay with machines - a soul driven electronic pop workshop - pushing musicality and redefining the pop experience. The majority of the set was drawn from 'Painting with' - a long player that has caused some fuss online in comment sections under videos - I think it's absolutely sublime - well realised - less prog noodles and over introspection. It's a new pop statement for a time when pop has pretty much died ( Christ- I witnessed that in the choice of support - i know I should get over it - but I think i'm scarred)  

As they drop Golden Gal - I'm twitching and a rocking in my seat ( I was high up - it happens at my age) - a song with a sonic thump and squelch - radiating through the wonderful setting of The Troxy - coupled with a set of carved faces and projections and pulsing lights - it's clear that Animal Collective want you to have an experience. And if truth be a told an experience was had - so different to their recordings as songs emerge and sounds becoming melodies and voices begin to rise and rasp over this sampled electronic back beat (and boy do they use it) 

And out of this futurism emerges a nod to the past - Jimmy Mack - all covered in reverb and rhythm as Avey sends out a melancholic message of loss - of hope that maybe Jimmy might come back.  There are nods to the past elsewhere as well - older tracks from Feels and Post Merriweather Pavilion sit comfortably in this pure electronic handling of all material - this band has no guitars - they are not needed now. 

Perhaps they never were. 

It's interesting how all this looks - Geologists nodding - Avey whooping and being lost in the moment  ( kind of like a possessed music teacher) and the Panda Bear holding his mic - in what seems like a nervous disposition until his voice soars and swoops in (endless) harmony with Tare's deeper tones.  I know you're not meant to mention the Beach Boys - but that's why I rate them - they push the relationship with music and voice and that in my opinion this deserves to be discussed in the realms of a post Beach Boys age.  It really is The Orb meets Wilson 20,000 leagues up in the sky. Repetitive melody and heartbreaking harmony. I love it and it nearly restored my belief in the power of sound to change the world.  Nearly. 

And then after The Burglars - they are gone. There's been lots of wonder and awe on between. But for now they leave the stage. Not for long. Lights kick in - they assemble in that slacker Kraftwerk manner and offer us Daily Routine into Alvin Row ( a song from years and years ago) updated for the masses - who respond with rapture and cheer. 

Finally - the beat begins to kick in and those Floridada sounds emerge - a song so instantly catchy that as I depart the crowds are simply humming and singing - unknowingly - unwittingly - because it just lodges in the brain and whirls around and around. 

It's a fitting end to the evening - the song captures the sonic thrill of this collective mining of pop - it's irresistible - filled with hooks - veers into psychedelia and still remains of the past, present and future. 

Which is pretty much what Animal Collective do. 

They are all past, present and future. They are not ironic. They don't preach or try to challenge preconceptions - they make music. 

They make music with heart and soul.

They are a wonderful band to have in these dark times. 

Here is a great performance from 6music - it will get right inside your brains.