Pitchfork

It's so nice in here, finally getting cozy around the digital campfire, passing assorted Panda Bear material to the left-hand side in advance of his forthcoming full-length Person Pitch. Sure, we're like the last site in the intersphere to weigh in on it, but we're definitely no less smitten. We were told that his mournful and lovely 2004 solo acoustic mediation Young Prayer was a one-off, and the more heavily produced material here proves it.

The title of album track "Bros" gets me thinking first about Brother Records, the Beach Boys imprint that released the "Heroes and Villains" single in 1967. That song's sparkling, refracted Americana clings to "Bros" like water droplets on a spider web. Where even at their best, Panda's main gig Animal Collective are an acquired taste, "Bros" has something immediate for everybody-- it's as tuneful as a Brill Building nugget with a kaleidoscopic soundstage borrowed from the Black Ark. In other words, it's snappy and spacious dubblegum, the Archies meets the rockers uptown, the Everly Brothers if they'd been a single man with two heads and a solder-dripping four-track.

The layered voices you hear in the tightened-up radio mix are missed on this compelling live video, filmed at London's Upset the Rhythm in January 2005 (and unearthed from Youtube yesterday by music blog Gorilla vs. Bear), but the melody atop the jangly loop still rings true.

Another stunning album track, "Comfy in Nautica", first came our way as a single last November, but sounds even better now that the context is becoming clearer, as the heavy repetition and soaring vocal answering all of the lyric's questions. And those lyrics remain as resonant and comforting as ever: "Coolness is having courage/ Courage to do what's right/ Try to remember always/ Just to have a good time."

MP3: > Panda Bear: "Comfy in Nautica"
[from Person Pitch; due 03/20/07 on Paw Tracks]