By Exclaim! StaffAside from his work with Animal Collective, Noah Lennox has enjoyed major acclaim for his solo work under the Panda Bear moniker. In 2007, the project exploded with the release of the sampler-infused Person Pitch LP. Tomboy, his long-awaited third album, has been in the works for three years and finally sees release this week.
Speaking with Exclaim!, Lennox explains that he went to great lengths to avoid repeating himself. "I had gotten sort of tired of using the sampler set-up and I just felt like maybe if I kept writing songs like that it would just kind of not be that interesting," he says. "I just felt like it was kind of the lame thing to do, just keep doing that. The very first thing I thought about was the kind of equipment set-up I would use for the songs. So that was the very first step for sure."
With that in mind, Lennox started toying with new audio configurations. "I was into the idea of using a guitar to trigger a synthesizer of some sort, or a sequencer," he recalls. "I'm not really a good enough guitar player because you've got to be really precise with just the way that whole thing works. It wasn't really going so well, or I wasn't really producing the results that were really any good. And then I saw -- I sort of just got psyched about using the guitar just normally but feeding it through -- like I wanted everything to go through this one sort of brain and that ended up being this sequencer box... The foundation of almost every song, and this was by design, was drums sequenced on the machine, the guitar being filtered through effects in the machine and then vocals. I thought of it as a triangle or a pyramid. That's how, sonically, I wanted all the songs to be."
Another key element in developing Tomboy's sound was the addition of Spacemen 3 member Sonic Boom (aka Peter Kember). After becoming friends over email, Kember was enrolled to mix the album as a matter of circumstance. "Originally, I intended to mix the album with Dave and Josh from Animal Collective [but] because I sort of took so long to finish everything those plans fell through," Lennox recalls. "When I finally knew that that wasn't going to happen anymore, the very next day Sonic wrote to me about ATP, I think it was, and it just kind of suddenly seemed like the most natural thing, so I asked him if he would do it and he was down."
From there, Kember's role in the album deepened. "We spent the next couple of weeks talking about the songs and about the album," Lennox says. "He really wanted to know everything, like all the lyrics, he wanted to hear every mix I'd ever done of every song and we really went really deep before we even started mixing stuff... I think it was kind of like: 'Are you cool if I do whatever I want with it?' Or like: 'Is it cool if I hear little things and I add stuff?' And I was like, 'Yeah, whatever is best for the song.'"
Tomboy will be released tomorrow (April 12) via Paw Tracks. Starting tomorrow, you can also stream the album here on Exclaim.ca.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-11 15:32:40Just a note: Tomboy is Panda Bear's fourth LP. His first was a self-titled on Soccer Star records that is not well known. http://en.wikipedia.org/w...(album)
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-11 15:34:37Great album. One for the ages.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-12 12:21:00This is better than person pitch, imho
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-12 13:49:14Hard time getting into this? Go find Cid.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-13 09:49:43When a true artist writes a song, the first thing they should think about is what kind of sampler they're going to use- give me a break. Take away his toys and Mr.Lennox would be nowhere, no doubt.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-19 15:44:41Yeah! Same goes for every other artist today. Everyone knows the only instrument true artists use are two rocks banged together.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-05-10 11:00:51@Nameless Poseur we should also take brushes from painters. How about cleated shoes from track runners or even animating out of comic book movies. Mr. Lennox uses technology to enhance his creative output not as a veil over any type of inadequacies. There are those who use digital manipulation and suck at it which can ruin the conceptions of listeners about electronic music. On the 9th day God said, "Genres are FAKE and so are the people who knowingly adhere to them". (IMHO) Think about it before responding please.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-06-28 02:02:16Art has owed it's growth and success to technology.
Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-11-10 23:50:36um look at panda bear's young prayer album, its almost all guitar and voice. he is not limited to sampling.
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Apr 11 2011
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Posted by Nameless Poseur On 2011-04-11 13:57:53Having a hard time getting into this... It didn't stick like Person Pitch.
