And All I Want To Do Is Take It Easy

The Field - A Paw In My Face

I did a long interview last night with Noah Lennox - Panda Bear - who I know I've blogged about here already but I really do think that this new record, Person Pitch is the most exciting thing I've heard in a long time or ever(?!). It's the sort of record that begs for explanation or understanding even if it's so simple in its repetition and lyrics but so beguiling and otherwordly in it's melodies and samples.

He's interested in DJ culture, in dance music, 12" singles, beats, rhythms. Apparently Luomo's record Paper Tigers was the largest influence on his making of Person Pitch (amongst other things; dub, falling in love, getting married, having a child, moving to Lisbon). Luomo's is a techno record that not everyone will enjoy; a little too techno for some, I'm sure, a little too abstract for others. He also digs on a record called From Here We Go To Sublime by The Field, which, strangely, I had been listening to before the interview and considering it's similarities to the repetition and beats and rhythms of Panda Bear's music. The Field is driving and relentless. Panda Bear is supremely carefree; wandering, dawdling. Of course, they sound very different, but there's some very similar ideas at work in each. Emmy Hennings has been blogging about notions of the polyrhythmic and the track from The Field at the top seems in line with those sorts of sounds. I can see how Noah Lennox can have heard this sort of techno but I'm constantly amazed at how he could use its influence in such a fucking brilliant and unique and personal way.

Another interesting aspect of Person Pitch are the notions of digital media that Noah Lennox became interested in during the creation of the record. It surprised me to hear that he collected all of the samples found on the album from the internet, from free sample and sound affect sites. Still, he maintains a strictly analogue feel across the whole album. When listening to 'Bros' (the 12 minute centrepiece of the album) the peculiar sound affect of a duck honking or other weird FX drifting in or out of. Noah Lennox is not much of a dancer, in public, at least. But it's hard to imagine him not being completely carried away when creating these beats, and it's hard for me not to want to dance ridiculously; because it's something innate, this sound.