Day 302: Panda Bear – Person Pitch

I have one more day of work before I get a little bit of time off, so I need something to help me get to my holiday in high spirits. I need an album that’s so gentle and friendly that it’ll essentially roll me into a ball and push me across that finish line. Panda Bear’s 2007 indie classic Person Pitch seems like an appropriate choice.

Album cover courtesy of Paw Tracks

Panda Bear is the stage name of Noah Benjamin Lennox, famously a founding member of the band Animal Collective but who released solo material alongside being in the band. Between today and 1999, he has released seven solo albums,

His third album, Person Pitch, was recorded over a two year period between tours with his band. He’d also recently gotten married, become a father and moved to Portugal. He credits the sunnier sound to the changes he’d had in his life and the pivot from rock to sample-heavy electronic music to the fact that his guitars were stuck in Portuguese customs, but he did have his Boss SP-303 sampler.

It’s an interesting album. It occasionally kind of sounds like a modern version of Beach Boys or at least vaguely Brian Wilson-y, and there’s just an unbridled sense of joy to it. The sound is also so complex and layered that I didn’t get that much out of it when I was listening to it on a speaker and realised pretty quickly it’s just not the sort of album you have on a speaker in the background, it’s one you need to really sink into.

However, it’s one of those albums that I just don’t find myself having much to say about. I think maybe because it’s so hyped – I expected something incredibly impressive, but what I got was an album that’s just nice to listen to. To me, Person Pitch was fine, I’ve got nothing bad to say but nothing particularly good either. It’s a 7/10.