KEY POINTS:
Herald rating: * * * * *
Label: Arch Hill
Verdict: Those cuddly Panda Bears sure make magical music
An astounding album from an odd musical character. Panda Bear (real name Noah Lennox) is one part of weird and wonderful New York pop outfit Animal Collective.
On his last album, Young Prayer, he mostly used acoustic instruments, this time round it's samples and electronics. In a musical day and age where use of those two music-making tools produces mostly disposable rubbish, Person Pitch is inspired.
On the album's two (very) long tracks - Bros and Good Girl/Carrots are both more than 12 minutes - there's a propulsive tribal mantra more like a band from the Sahara than the music of a crazy Brian Wilson-loving kid from New York City.
The shorter I'm Not and Search For Delicious are the tracks that most resemble actual songs. The first has Lennox's fawning and sweet vocal ballet backed with a dead beat thud and the latter, with its warped yet whimsical soundscapes, perhaps best sums up this delicious album.
Who knows what it all means? Then again, with sounds as gorgeously mangled and intriguing as this, who cares? Mind you, Panda Bear does offer one possible answer and here's a hint: it has something to do with the eerie Beach Boys-styled sing-a-long of Take Pills.
