There aren’t many artists at the moment whose new material is limited to a couple of fan-made YouTube videos. MP3 leaks are non-existent for Noah Lennox, but it’s not like he needs any additional build-up for his new works. They’re exciting, those harsh synth stammers at the start of his current performances, oblique and Beatles-esque compared to his other new jams.
Cabernet Sauvage, on the (sort of) outskirts of Paris, seemed like a pretty good place to hear them. I’d only found out a half hour before heading out to the terrific permanent “tent” (complete with stained glass, wooden décor, and red velvet curtains) that Kurt Vile was opening, and his typically lucid and hazy solo ramblings came off spacious yet intimate. His “classic rock in spring” vibe permeated across material mostly from Constant Hitmaker and God Is Saying This To You and ending on the hypnotic loop from “Best Love” (particularly dense and loud in this live context), which served as a perfect segue to Panda Bear’s electronic sounds.
Starting with those harsh inverse synth arpeggios before adding guitar and beats, Panda Bear’s set of basically all-new material moved alongside hyper-weird and textural projected visuals. And if Person Pitch explores dance music tropes, many of these new songs are more “song-” or ballad-like. But there are also some total bangers; one song in particular took on hip-hop styles, with a beat typically missed in preference of a rest, which of course only adds to the incessancy, especially when backed with such huge bass. Elsewhere, shuffly dance and more dub-based ideas came out full and skewed, especially at one moment when foresty/liquid-y sounds were backed with visual loops of 10-13-year-old girls losing their shit at some sort of Britney Spears concert. It’s this sort of genre exploration doubled with rhythmic focus, vocal fervor, and general belief in wonder/beauty that continues to give Panda Bear’s music such relevance.
[Photo: Hisham Bharoocha]
