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Person Pitch

 
Album Review: Person Pitch
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Person Pitch

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  • Artist: Panda Bear
  • Rating: StarStarStarHalf Star
  • Release Date: March 20, 2007
  • Genre: Rock

Review

Starting an album with a clattering of industrial rhythms sliding into a huge clap-and-stompalong with angelic vocals and what sounds like the Brotherhood of Man on a vocal loop tip not far removed from Suicide or Laurie Anderson is one way to make a mark. The fact that Panda Bear, aka Noah Lennox himself, sings like Brian Wilson and produces his voice to sound like it is another, though it has to be said that it just makes his Animal Collective membership all the more clear at this point. Person Pitch is very much an end product of a variety of musical trends in whatever can be called indie rock in the early 21st century -- big-sounding, absolutely dedicated to texture and sonic playfulness, and somehow aiming to make a lot of interesting ideas seem kinda flat. There's no question there's both an audience for Panda Bear's work and the sounds he's playing around with, and to his considerable credit he creates a series of moody and memorable loops throughout. Songs like "Take Pills" and "Good Girl" are miles away from the rhythm-by-numbers of many of Panda Bear's contemporaries; importantly, after so many bands that just want to sound like late-'60s Beach Boys lock, stock, and barrel, the fact that there's a recognition that production and beat technology didn't stay frozen in time stands out. At its best, with the song "Bros," there's a beautiful transcendence that lives up to all the promise that has surrounded Panda Bear's work, the song slowly but surely evolving into a fantastic epic that could easily stand on its own as an EP. Still, the sweetness is almost too gooey, and what should be providing a healthy contrast ends up dragging the best instrumental moments down more than once, almost literally getting in the way of the striking sonic collages. It may be heresy to some, but conceivably Person Pitch would be at its best if it were strictly instrumental. ~ Ned Raggett, All Music Guide

Tracks

Track TitleComposersPerformersTime
Comfy in Nautica Panda Bear (4:04)
Take Pills (Lyrics) Panda Bear (5:23)
Bros (Lyrics) Panda Bear (12:30)
Im Not Panda Bear (3:59)
Good Girl/Carrots Panda Bear (12:42)
Search for Delicious Panda Bear (2:05)
Ponytail (Lyrics) Panda Bear

Credits

Panda (Producer), Rob Carmichael (Layout Design), Panda (Mixing), Alan Douches (Mastering), Panda (Engineer), Agnes Montgomery (Artwork), Rusty "Saphire" Santos (Mixing)
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Wikipedia: Person Pitch
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Person Pitch
Studio album by Panda Bear
Released March 20, 2007
Genre Psychedelic pop
Length 45:36
Label Paw Tracks
Professional reviews
Panda Bear chronology
Young Prayer
(2004)		 Person Pitch
(2007)

Person Pitch is the third solo album released by Animal Collective member Panda Bear (aka Noah Lennox), released on March 20, 2007. The album was released to high critical acclaim.[1] Pitchfork Media and Tiny Mix Tapes both ranked Person Pitch the best album of 2007.[2][3] Pitchfork Media also called it the ninth greatest album of the decade.[4]

Contents

Release history

Five of the seven tracks on the album were released prior to the album, some of them with different mixing and/or lengths. "I'm Not" and "Comfy in Nautica" were released together as a double A-side single in 2005. "Bros" was released as a single on Fat Cat Records in late 2006. "Good Girl / Carrots" was released in early 2007 on a split 12" with the band Excepter via Animal Collective's own label Paw Tracks (on the single, the song is called, simply, "Carrots"). "Search for Delicious" was featured in 2005 on Volume 14 of music magazine Comes With a Smile's CD compilations. Finally, "Take Pills" was released as a 7" single on June 19, 2007. Despite Lennox's initial assertion that Person Pitch would be issued only on CD, it was announced shortly after its release that it would in fact be pressed on vinyl; the double LP was released on June 19.
Initially Lennox wanted to name it Perfect Pitch, but eventually changed it to Person Pitch - "Pitch being sound and Person being a person and Person Pitch being a sound of a person."[5]

The album was recorded by Lennox and was mixed by Rusty Santos. Recorded using mostly samplers, the album is stylistically a large step away from Panda Bear's last album, Young Prayer, which was written and recorded after the death of Lennox's father. Lennox himself described the songs in advance as "super dubby and old sounding, like Motown or Buddy Holly just a little bit."[6] In fact, Person Pitch exhibits a much brighter sound, perhaps due in part to Lennox's move to Portugal. Seeing this connection and the change of atmosphere in his music, Lennox says:

“ A lot of the songs on Person Pitch are kind of sugary. [...] It’s really mellow and sunny here [in Portugal] and I feel like the album really sounds like that to me. Also the stuff that’s happened to me in the past two years, like getting married and having a kid and all that, has had a pretty profound impact on the kind of music I play and the kind of subjects I address. My approach to being a musician has drastically changed from having a kid and being a provider. It was kind of terrifying at first, I won’t lie to you. It’s made me feel like I don’t want to fuck up, and I want to make sure I cover all my bases. And that’s not to say that I suddenly want to make music that’s going to sell a whole lot of copies cause I don’t really think I could do that. But I want to make sure that whatever I’m doing, I’m doing it to the fullest extent that I can.[7] ”

The artwork for Person Pitch and all of the related singles was done by Agnes Montgomery[1]. Notably, it includes a long list of credits and various musical influences, including Cat Stevens, Daft Punk, Black Dice, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, Black Flag, Vashti Bunyan, Ariel Pink, Aphex Twin, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Jay-Z, Talk Talk, Kylie Minogue, Ennio Morricone, Metallica, Wu-Tang Clan, Nina Simone, The Strokes, Dr. Dre, Notorious B.I.G., Nirvana, Echo & the Bunnymen, Enya, George Michael, Grateful Dead, Maria Callas, Phil Collins, New Order and others. About the decision to put this list in the booklet and the making of the artwork, Lennox said:

“ Initially I knew I wanted to do something that was really symmetrical. The album is kind of symmetrical in terms of how long the songs are, and I wanted the album art to reflect that. I knew I wanted to do a lot of personal thank yous and I knew I wanted to have the artwork from all the singles on there in a symmetrical fashion. So I needed another text panel, and I also thought that since I was sampling so many different people I thought it was appropriate to give thanks to other musicians. I’d never really done that before, and I also always had trouble when people were like “who are your influences, what do you feel influenced the music on this album.” I was always like, “I don’t really know.” I don’t listen to music at home a whole lot and the stuff that I do hear is usually because of the other guys in the band, or the stuff I would hear at Other [Music, a New York City record store where Noah once worked] every day. I don’t have a record player or own a whole lot of CDs or anything like that, so it was always kind of a difficult question for me to answer. So this time I was like, I’ll really try to think about what I feel led me to make this kind of music and give respect to those people.[7] ”

Track listing

CD

  1. "Comfy in Nautica" - 4:04
  2. "Take Pills" - 5:23
    • Contains a sample of "Always Coming Back to You" performed by Scott Walker
    • Contains a sample of "Popeye Twist" performed by The Tornados
  3. "Bros" - 12:30
    • Contains a sample of "Red Roses and a Sky of Blue" performed by The Tornados
    • Contains a sample of "I've Found a Love" performed by Cat Stevens
    • Contains a sample of "Rub A Dub Dub" performed by The Equals
  4. "I'm Not" - 3:59
  5. "Good Girl/Carrots" - 12:42
    • Contains a sample of "Radio Calcutta #2" taken from the album "Radio India: The Eternal Dream of Sound", released by Sublime Frequencies
    • Contains a sample of "Enter the Dragon" performed by Lee "Scratch" Perry
    • Contains a sample of "Ananas Symphonie" performed by Kraftwerk
  6. "Search for Delicious" - 4:53
  7. "Ponytail" - 2:05

Vinyl

Side A

  1. "Comfy in Nautica" - 4:04
  2. "Take Pills" - 5:23

Side B

  1. "Bros" - 12:30

Side C

  1. "Good Girl/Carrots" - 12:42

Side D

  1. "I'm Not" - 3:59
  2. "Search for Delicious" - 4:53
  3. "Ponytail" - 2:05

References

  1. ^ "Panda Bear: Person Pitch (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/pandabear/personpitch?q=panda%20bear. Retrieved 2007-01-04. 
  2. ^ Richardson, Mark. "Top 50 Albums of 2007". Pitchfork Media. http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/6753-top-50-albums-of-2007/5/. Retrieved 2009-11-26. 
  3. ^ "Tiny Mix Tapes Favorite Albums of 2007". Tiny Mix Tapes. http://www.tinymixtapes.com/2007-Tiny-Mix-Tapes-Favorite,4902. Retrieved 2008-01-04. 
  4. ^ Murphy, Matthew. "Top 200 Albums of the 2000s". Pitchfork Media. http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/7710-the-top-200-albums-of-the-2000s-20-1/2/. Retrieved 2009-11-26. 
  5. ^ Interview, Má Fama radio, January 8, 2007
  6. ^ Interview, The Milk Factory, April 2005
  7. ^ a b Hatch-Miller, R. "Dusted Feature: Panda Bear," Dusted Magazine.

External links

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See also

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 
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