Panda Bear- Person Pitch

He does.

i walked around listening to this while stoned a lot this year

Earlier this year when I was walking around listening to this while stoned a lot, this was my favorite record of the year, too. Then again, I think one night I fooled myself into thinking the Wannadies "You and Me Song" was one of the greatest pop singles of all time, while terribly overboard stoned. This album still rules.

As far as the Mordechai vs max debate goes, I think you're both right and wrong a little.

Mordechai, like others have said, if you don't like it after 12 listens, just shelve it for a while. It's not a big deal, really, and later you may come around to it. That's what happened with me this year and XTC. I made a failed concerted effort to get into them, forgot about it for a while, and then one day I heard "Complicated Game" in a friend's car and it clicked all of a sudden.

Max, I get behind most of what you're saying, but realize that beyond ILM and music blog world, there are tons of people who have no idea who Animal Collective are, let alone Panda Bear. It's cool he's even giving it a chance, that's more than what most people would do with music that is wholly unfamiliar sounding.

Panda Bear 1,176,982 plays scrobbled on Last.fm (mostly in the past year)
Amy Winehouse 7,719,474 plays scrobbled on Last.fm
The Beatles 71,356,933 plays scrobbled on Last.fm

I'd say that's pretty popular!

Sure, but -

I was just about to make some argument that last.fm users tended to skew toward indie music, but then I checked the stats and saw that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were #3 overall, so there goes that.

I guess Panda Bear is MASSIVE!

i finally listened to this. it's ok, about what i expected. pretty, but wispy. the pfork enthronement is funny, it's like they're trying to prove the point that sfj couldn't quite prove himself.

my argument isnt even about whether or not panda bear is popular!!! most of the people i spend time with wont have heard of them at all. im just saying, if mordechai is posting on ilm and fancies himself something of a critic, saying shit like "i dont understand why people like this at all" a couple hours after articulating 4 reasons that i like this record is either naive or dishonest!

and being like "none of my friends on facebook like this album" isnt really a rejoinder to "how on earth can you not tell what people like about this album"

trying to prove the point that sfj couldn't quite prove himself.

I was thinking this also, but Person Pitch is apparently dubby, too. A dubby Beach Boys homage.

^^it's incredibly dubby!

and being like "none of my friends on facebook like this album" isnt really a rejoinder to "how on earth can you not tell what people like about this album"

To be fair, I really don't think that was the point he was trying to address with his Facebook stats.

dubby usually implies some sort of groove

i don't have a dog in this fight really. i like this album but it didn't exactly grab me, but i don't think it was trying to. it had a lot of really interesting shit going on in it, lots of cool repetition and a sustained hazy mood. it has a cool dreamlike logic, i guess: i can imagine exactly the overall texture and color and a few snips of melody, but i can't lay out in my head which 'songs' came where or anything. it's that kind of record.

but it's still 'pop,' i mean, this isn't serialism or kevin drumm or any over the other true-blue avant shit i've picked up and made myself listen to over the years and had to really think hard: "ok, what exactly is the engine of enjoyment/interest at work here -- cos it's not hooks or beats or wit or any of the other stuff i'm used to listening for, out of habit." i still don't think i hear everything that's happening in 'out' music, but, i've got plenty of time. life is pretty long! i figure my retirement will be full of long days listening to woyzeck or whatever.

mordechai it seems like you don't have a lot of experience with that kind of record, or you're making a big show of being baffled by it. "I've never heard an album I didn't understand as little as this one" ok well, first, there's a whole universe of music that is way more incomprehensible that this! and second: maybe forget about having total understanding of it!

like i said, it has a lot of pretty obvious 'dreamlike' or 'hazy' things going on (echo, repetition, voices in the distance, all that), it's practially BEGGING to be called such. so saying "this record is SO WEIRD what the FUUUCK guys!!?!?" seems of a kind with being creeped out by metallica in 07 or something

man i never write anything very long on ilx! and i don't even care that much about panda bear! very pretty album, though, i should listen to it again.

Chatterbox.

let me reiterate:

if you actually cant even "see what's there" it makes me feel like you grew up in a bubble.

^^^^^
the "bubble" of which i am speaking is NOT a "bubble" where no one likes panda bear. no one, in the broadest sense, likes panda bear. i get that. the "bubble" is the place where you cant figure out for the life of you why people might like things like: a repetitive beat, atmospherics, weird vocals, etc (nb thats not my description of panda bear, that's mordechai's!!). when i said its not very "out there" i mean that its not so strange or bizarre that there arent (clearly) plenty of people who like it; i mean, most of the songs have a rhythm and a melody which places them in the "fairly normal" category from where im sitting.

xxpost gff otm

dubby usually implies some sort of groove

really? sure the deep bass groove is important (and there are even parts of person pitch that have that, regardless), but what sonically distinguishes dub from say, reggae (which has the same bass groove, i guess) are all the atmospherics, the echo, reverb, ambient noises, weird sense of space, etc. all these mean dub to me more than a groove.

dubby usually implies some sort of groove

-- chaki, Wednesday, December 19, 2007 1:36 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

GOOD GIRLS/CARROTS

fwiw, I dislike this album

This is a really strange record to get all baffled by. Its virtues are pretty immediate. My only complaint, really, is that it hasn't grown very well (kinda the opposite of being impenetrable).

great thread. max is right.

This album shrunk on me really fast. It sounded really great at first but didn't have much to offer me on repeated listens.

Probably because it's really sonically hollow; there's not much to go back to, nothing that reveals itself on further listens, because it's all flat. It's beautiful, but completely... surface.

But yeah, if you can't see AT ALL why other people would like this, even slightly, then you're being very... bloody minded.

People compare it to the Beach Boys, but I love the Beach Boys.

should probably just let this drop but if you can watch the Comfy in Nautica video and still say "I don't get what this has to do with the Beach Boys" then I got nothin' more for ya

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25_gjUbvqNg

still love this album .... I'm with Tim F., this and Studio are the tops

I totally see the Beach Boys thing, but I passionately despise the Beach Boys, too.

rev if i didnt already know you were a bro your dislike of chic and the beach boy would probably make me hate you

wow that video rules!

Naw, I have nothing against Chic, I just don't get 'em. The Beach Boys DRIVE ME FUCKING INSANE.

I hate those kind of cherubic Glee Club white people voices, is what it is.

I love the Beach Boys, but Panda Bear didn't really do it for me the first couple times I heard the album. Should probably give it another go. I do like the Beach Boys homage "College" on Animal Collective's Sung Tongs.

the Beach Boys are white?! oh man...

I was shocked when I found out, too.

I sort of understand what people mean when thay say this album has "shrunk" on them - it totally hasn't for me, but it's exactly the sort of music that I would absolutely expect to. I've been surprised that I love it so much every time i put it on.

I find this album irritatingly irresolute and wallpaper-y.

let us not go down this road again.

I'm really not into the Beach Boys much at all. The early songs about having sex in cars with your girlfriend's sister are OK, and there's a smattering of decent tunes from later on, but most of it leaves me cold.

I don't even think it sounds like the Beach Boys at all, apart from maybe a few vague signifiers. They certainly never were *this* plodding and drowned in bullshit digi-verb production.

Some of the vocal workouts on this record remind me of a cross between The Missa Luba and the Beach Boys' "Cool, Cool Water."

"...bullshit digi-verb production."

-- Turangalila, Wednesday, January 2, 2008 6:00 AM (7 hours ago)

Fine, not bullshit digiverb. To quote my friend Nick, "it's more like wanna-be Warn Defever circa '94"

Bullshit Digi-Verb: That's What's Happening!

I've heard my share of bullshit digi-verb and sir I can tell you that that is not bullshit digi-verb.

I like this record. It's a bit of an over-simplification to say it sounds like Warn Defever circa '94-'96. Structurally, all those songs (most of which are quite awesome) are about juxtaposition. The Panda Bear tracks are more about blending and mixing allusion and influence--not to imply that this is somehow revolutionary or something because it's not.

I like the more Krauty aspects of the record. The way Bros ends with Amon Duul circa Psychedelic Underground riffage is what makes the track for me. Also, sampling Ananas Symphonie off Ralf and Florian on one track is a nice touch.

Yeah, I guess it's not really that gated, reverb sound from the 80s. It's more of a faux Brian Wilson vibe, but without any of the compositional components that made BW interesting.

You make it sound so exciting, though. Heh.

actually I was gonna say you make it sound like a record critic record

haha yes

a few months back, in a moment of less-than-perfect lucidity, I described this record to a friend of mine as the musical equivalent of one of those waterslides that's partially open and partially enclosed. I'm still not really sure what I meant by that, but every time I think about this record, the metaphor makes more and more sense to me.

I guess in the end, the strongest impression I take away from this album is one of extreme linearity... but somehow, that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. people who said there were no details to discover on repeat listens were right. for me, though, much of the appeal lies in the way that everything fits together. "Good Girl/Carrots" is a great example of what I'm talking about: 3 distinct sections, all more or less static. within the first 10 seconds of each, I remember exactly how it goes and know what to expect for the next 4 minutes or so. but somehow, I have trouble keeping the overall structure of the song in my head, and the way the different movements (ugh, sorry, I can't think of a less pretentious word) flow into each other never fails to excite me. the whole album feels like that to me, really; it's almost like listening to a really good DJ set, or an awesome radio station.

panda designs a hat
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2103/2233678058_f580958593_o.jpg

I bet this will be big with the "bape hoodies in union sq" crue

Also, sampling Ananas Symphonie off Ralf and Florian on one track is a nice touch.

where is that?

damn it guys why were you all talking about dance music up there, i finally bought this and it isn't like dance music at all!