Panda Bear’s Tomboy

Entertainment

Panda Bear’s Tomboy

Sean Oberschlake – November 16, 2011

Tomboy shatters expectations set by the last album Person Pitch.

Tomboy is an eleven-song album that is very consistent on a song-to-song basis. Most songs have heavy synth influence with a repetitive lyric.

The legendary Noah Lennox from the band Animal Collective released his new solo project album under the name Panda Bear named Tomboy. Four years after his 2007 album Person Pitch, Tomboy was released still in the shadow of Person Pitch but it did not stay there for long. Tomboy soon was on many different charts like the UK Albums Top 75 and the US Albums Top 100.

Some of the key tracks on the album include “Slow Motion”, “You Can Count On Me”, and “Surfer’s Hymn”. All of these songs resemble more of the brighter side of Lennox’s music. The song “Surfer’s Hymn” starts out with the roaring of the ocean and then Lennox starts to add in hard synths and an interesting combination of ocean waves and wind chimes and his voice ringing over all of the track.

When Pitchfork Media asked Noah Lennox if making Tomboy was hard for him Lennox replied, “I got into weird mental zones. It became like a daily nag situation where I would be writing a song and weird thoughts would creep in. It was like batting a fly away, almost-- something I had to get rid of every once in a while to get down to working and have a good time doing it.”

The album sounds totally different in its own way than anything that Noah Lennox has done with both Animal Collective and his solo work. "It was important [to me] that it came from a place that I'd never gone before and didn't have a firm grasp of," Lennox says. "Uncharted territory, I guess." says Lennox.

Tomboy is a little darker than any of the songs on Person Pitch or Merriweather Post Pavilion (Animal Collective). Most of the songs on the album have no resemblance to any song on either of these albums. The only song that is similar to Person Pitch is the song “Surfers Hymn”.

One of the complaints about Panda Bear’s new album is the fact it lacks the emotion that is in his other solo works and with Animal Collective. Lennox uses very little emotion, enough that you can sense it but not enough to figure out what the song is really about. This makes the album harder and less palatable than his other works but it serves as a good challenge to listen to.

If you are the type of person who likes to know what the song is about or even what kind of mood it is omitting. Also, if you are expecting an album close to Person Pitch then you are in for a rude awakening, Tomboy is a very unique album. This album might be a disappointment to some, but if you are up for a musical challenge then you should like the album.

Lennox is touring for the album Tomboy until December in the United States and all over Europe, including the Netherlands, Belgium, France and England.

Tomboy:

01 You Can Count on Me

02 Tomboy

03 Slow Motion

04 Surfers Hymn

05 Last Night at The Jetty

06 Drone

07 Alsatian Darn

08 Scheherezade

09 Friendship Bracelet

10 Afterburner

11 Benfica