Person Pitch
Label: Paw Tracks
Length: LP
Rated: NONE
Release Date: 2007-03-20
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Person Pitch
C’mon, ‘Comfy in Nauticaâ?�? It reeks of the product-placement-as-content rationalizing we expect from chart-aspiring hip-hop; it isn’t impossible to imagine some NYC punchline rapper titling his album’s ‘startlingly intimateâ?� slow jam that way, but that’s how Panda Bear opens up Person Pitch. Naturally, ‘Nauticaâ?� and the rest of the album have more in common with in-the-weeds Brian Wilson than calculating Cam’ron, but Noah ‘Panda Bearâ?� Lennox is no stranger to pop’s heppest genre ‘ the album’s liner notes furiously shout out Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan and Pete Rock when they don’t hail the likes of Christian Hosoi, Black Flag and Gang Gang Dance’s singer ‘ and shares its preoccupations with repetition and rhythms. You’re Alice, while Lennox has fabricated a festive, ever-on-the-verge-of-evaporating Wonderland. Person Pitch is a luscious, sample-saturated sinkhole where acoustic strings and handclaps operate as percussive elements, while the host multitracks himself heavenly, birds lurk behind every winsome melody or intrinsic tribalist impulse, and surrealist detours are never more than a carefully mangled tape loop away.
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2007.