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Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti- The Doldrums (Hypnagogic Pop, Psychedelic Pop, Dream Pop) Released: October 11, 2005 [Paw Tracks] Producer(s): Ariel Pink

#hypnagogic pop #psychedelic pop #dream pop #Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti #Ariel Pink #Paw Tracks

❤ 🐶 ❤ how cute is this puppy love (free pattern) blanket?!? Is pupper-dorable a word yet? ❤ 🐶 ❤

#crochet #puppy love #pattern #puppy tracks #hearts #squares #square #throw #blanket #paw tracks

Daily Listening, Day #839 - April 18th, 2022

Album: Person Pitch (Paw Tracks, 2007)

Artist: Panda Bear

Genre: Neo-Psychedelia, Psychedelic Pop

Track Listing:

“Comfy In Nautica”

“Take Pills”

“Bros”

“Im Not”

“Good Girl/Carrots”

“Search For Delicious”

“Ponytail”

Favorite Song: “Bros”

#Person Pitch #Panda Bear #Paw Tracks #Neo Psychedelia #Psychedelic Pop #2007 #Late 2000s #2000s

Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished- Animal Collective: 20th Anniversary

Years before Animal Collective became indie royalty, they were just four Brooklyn via Baltimore transplants that had begun making music with one another throughout high school. The band wasn’t defined as such until Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Geologist (Brian Weitz) and Deakin (Josh Dibb) first joined forces together for their terrific noise/freak folk record, Ark, in 2003. But before AC was established as a creative force, the various members released a handful of records under the names of the different members playing on them. Avey Tare had written the bulk of what was initially intended to be his first solo LP, Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished, in the first few years that he moved to Brooklyn, but he was so impressed after hearing Panda Bear drum that he recruited him to play drums on the album. Defined by a fusion of psychedelic pop, freak folk, ambient, noise, and experimental rock, STGSTV is a landmark of avant-garde pop that established the idiosyncratic patch that the duo (and later trio/quartet) would follow throughout the rest of their career.

Although all four members of AC didn’t begin releasing music with one another until a few years after Tare moved to Brooklyn, they’ve been playing music with each other for years beforehand. Noah and Josh met in grade school, and at some point in high school Josh introduced Noah to Dave and Brian, whom he had formed an indie rock band called Automine with. From there the four of them began swapping tapes, playing music, and expanding each other’s tastes. After high school Dave and Brian moved to Brooklyn (where Dave began work on STGSTV), and Noah and Josh moved to Boston, where Noah began work on what become his solo debut LP as Panda Bear. Panda Bear is an album comprised of Noah’s high school home recordings that include a variety of instruments including acoustic/electric guitar, a bass synth, a keyboard synth, piano, and cello (but no drums, curiously). It’s a solid first effort that established Noah’s compositional approach, but it doesn’t leave much of an impression, and is easily the most underwhelming record that he’s released as a solo act. Although they had been recording with one another for years, it wasn’t until Noah tracked drums on STGSTV that their collaborations began to manifest into music that would begin to define their artistic careers.

In contrast to Panda’s lo-fi, experimental electronic solo debut, STGSTV is a primarily analog avant-garde pop record with traces of psychedelia, freak folk, noise, ambient, and experimental rock seamlessly folded into its electro-acoustic sprawl. Avey wrote all of the songs, and played all of the instruments save for the drums, which included acoustic guitar, piano, bass synth, keyboard synth, tape loops, and his unmistakable signature shriek, which became one of the most distinctive elements of their sound. Future AC songs would be shaped by Panda’s voice as well, beginning most notably on the stellar second strictly Tare/Bear AC record, Sung Tongs, but on STGSTV it’s just Tare’s voice leading the proceedings. STGSTV is broken up into 10 songs, 2 of which are instrumentals, and the other 8 run the gamut from 3 and a half to 12 minutes, while defying easy classification at every turn.

The album begins with “Spirit They’ve Vanished” which consists of little more than shrill synth tones fluttering alongside Tare’s understated croon. It’s both tender and abrasive, and it perfectly sets the tone for everything to follow. The record balances the duo’s burgeoning avant-garde impulses against Tare’s first real forays into songwriting. There are moments of percussion-heavy propulsion, and moments of mesmerizing drone, but there aren’t any viable singles, or many songs that really even follow a verse-chorus-verse structure. Whether we’re talking about a song with that builds to a more conventional peak, like the lumbering march of the deliriously psychedelic “Penny Dreadfuls”, or something a little bit more amorphous, like the wandering noise interlude “Untitled”, the tracks that form STGSTV are bewitching and eclectic in equal measure, but they never compromise an ounce of Tare’s vision.

Although Tare and Bear would continue recording with one another (and Geologist and Deakin) throughout the next two decades, and would end up releasing many better records, there are still plenty of songs on STGSTV that rank as among the best to be released under the name AC. The record’s second song, “April and the Phantom”, brings Panda’s nimble tribal rhythms into the fold for the first time alongside Tare’s aforementioned shriek, which quickly became a staple of their sound. “Penny Dreadfuls” was written by Tare at 16, and it slowly builds into a euphoric eruption defined by twinkling keys, a barrage of cymbals, and some of Tare’s most expressive singing up to that point.

“Chocolate Girl” is broken down into two movements, the first of which alternates between Tare singing wildly over chiming synths and cymbal rolls and a soft acoustic guitar progression smothered in tape loops and synth texture as Tare begins to serenade the listener. The second movement is a jaunty acoustic guitar and kick/snare bounce with Tare’s restrained melodic delivery hovering above it all, and it’s one of the most infectious moments on the record. And on the bubbly, yet propulsive late-album highlight, “La Rapet”, Avey delivers a surprisingly anthemic vocal melody atop some of Panda’s most complex rhythms for the bulk of the song, before they transition into a waltz propelled by bright synths and Tare’s wistful delivery. The elements of AC’s sound were transparent from the start, but they were never again configured into shapes quite this unconventional while still conveying so much heart.

The sentiments expressed by Tare throughout STGSTV are entirely concerned with the death of childhood. Every song discusses some facet of growing up, and Avey sums up the record’s thematic through line best at the end of the opening track, “Spirit They’re Gone”, with “In spirit they’ve vanished/And I’ll show you why/They’ll make you take elder paths by this time/If we were just dolphins/In the sea and fly/It’s hard to kiss our/Child games goodbye”. The high-pitched frequencies, dense, lo-fi production, and engaging melodies heighten the potency of the nightmare fairy tale aesthetics, but it’s Tare’s poignant observations on the transition into adulthood that gives imbues the record with a sense of timelessness far beyond the instrumental ingenuity.

On “April and the Phantom” Tare sings about a girl named April who longs to escape into nature despite the opportunities that adulthood present “Everybody wants it/Ah, can't you see me waste it?” while on “Penny Dreadful” Tare depicts an encounter with a bully on the bus that’s cut brief when a friend intervenes “It’s a shame to hear the sound/When the penny hit the ground/And I want to go back home”. The song “Chocolate Girl” almost functions as a microcosm of the record’s themes as a whole, with Tare eventually learning to make peace with his parting from the titular character “Bell of the rain who brought the stings and dead/And who will pop the trade/’Cause I can’t see you/I’ll open up my brain again”. The lyrics are generally simple and heartfelt, but as the record progresses the sense of whimsy continues to recede, culminating in the grand epic, “Alvin Row”.

While the vast majority of the songs on STGSTV don’t stand out among their finest offerings, the astonishing 12 minute closer, “Alvin Row”, is still the most ambitious song that Avey has written to date. Throughout the course of nearly 13 minutes Avey and Panda unleash a tour de force of catharsis that begins with a harsh sheet of white noise to signify birth. From there a gentle piano melody begins to pick up steam as Avey depicts his childhood in a state of rapturous awe “Old clapper you can step inside/Accustomed to the rust your silver child”. Within a few minutes “Alvin Row” reaches the point of adolescence, with Tare repeatedly screaming “Run!” in the most devastating and expressive tone that he’s ever delivered over some remarkable cymbal rolls from Panda. After the storm subsidies, and the realities of adulthood begin to settle in, the instrumentation slowly begins to shift into a steady psych-pop shuffle and Avey adopts a contemplative but optimistic tone “I pulled the glass, it dripped too fast for second dawn/Since we passed through the maze as we unlock the stage of my other ride”. The guitars and drums continue to pick up steam until Panda begins to deliver a barrage of cymbal rolls while Tare closes the song out with a resigned acceptance in departing from childhood, vowing never to lose that spark “When I’ll say go, you say go, dear Alvin”.

STGSTV wasn’t a commercial breakthrough for the band despite lighting up the blogs (that wouldn't happen until the pair reconvened for their aforementioned 2004 freak folk classic, ST) but it was without question a creative breakthrough. There were obvious precedents for their music in the work of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Olivia Tremor Control, Pavement, and plenty of underground visionaries, but there’s never been a record released before or since that sounds anything like the remarkably cohesive blend of acoustics and electronics that Tare and Bear utilized on STGSTV. The four future members of AC spent the summer before its release engaged in the kind of improvised electro-acoustic jamming that would go on to become inform all of their future recordings, and all of it had a precedent here.

The band rarely returns to songs from STGSTV for their live shows, which is hardly surprising given the overwhelming emotional rawness of the sentiments expressed on it, but every once in a while AC will play various snippets of songs as a kind of tantalizing fan service. Despite the heights that they reached throughout the ensuing decade, STGSTV has continued to loom large on everything that the members of AC have done together, and as solo artists. It not only established the core/scope of their compositional approach and recording process as a band, but it showed what’s possible when two people with boundless creativity join forces under no pretense but that of discovering the boundless possibilities of sound.

Essentials: “Alvin Row”, “La Rapet”, “Chocolate Girl”

#Animal Collective #spirit they're gone spirit they've vanished #paw tracks

Panda Bear - Comfy in Nautica

#panda bear #comfy in nautica #person pitch #paw tracks #panda #vinyl me please #vinyl #record #album #turntable #turntable project #music video #music #animal collective

Oliver Twist by Avey Tare from Down There (2010)

("...he saw what, he would look in the rock and see what was in there and I guess that day he saw a skull. One of his dark days.")

Pockets...

Oh when I look through the door of my lean-to I don't know another lean room from my room Should I pull up the floor of my kitchen So I can feel the dirt while I'm doing all my dishes To live in a house that is breathing Is a luxury when you understand its meaning But even in a box am I dreaming Of a galaxy of stars above our ceiling

And my eye isn't understanding of what I see It's hard to think about the time it takes To get from one space to me (and it may take a while) It may take a while 'cause I never know where I should be And then I start thinkin', and I'm thinkin' Of the many dirty pennies and Different motions

Mine'll be kind of sticky lately stuck inside the ocean Oh, city grind It's hard to sit myself down And just think about the ocean Oh, am I crying?

Shouldn't I be content with what I've got And not seek dimes? Or am I denying myself it's Something that I'd enjoy if I acquire

And I wonder if it's me who's just a thief Taking the stash and blazin' the grass Diggin' a hole and diggin' it deep (and I dig for a while) Yeah, I dig for a while cause I never know When to plant the seed And then I start thinkin', and I'm thinking Of the many dirty pennies

(it's going to be a fine night tonight, it's going to be a fine day tomorrow)

And if I have some kind of need Maybe the thing I need is the thing I've got And if I look inside of me I find the thing that can't be took or bought

And I know that there are needy Some are good, yeah, but some are rotten Why should I motivate my needs When I know my greed should be forgotten

Is it alright if we feel good?

#oliver twist #avey tare #down there #paw tracks #experimental #neo-psychedelia #neo psychedelia #acid folk #freak folk #psychedelic folk

Person Pitch- Panda Bear: 10th Anniversary

While the process of sampling, and even constructing entire songs from the use of samples was nothing new in 2007 when Panda Bear released his flawless third studio LP, Person Pitch, samples had never been utilized before, or after, quite like this. Balancing his innate sense of rhythm, melodic prowess, ear for sonics and overall atmosphere, and fondness for psychedelic pop and minimal techno in equal measure, Panda Bear created a multi-faceted patchwork of sounds both nostalgia-tinged yet forward-thinking. Person Pitch is a landmark achievement, a record that truly sounds like nothing else while fully encompassing all the signature elements of the music Panda Bear came to be associated with (rhythmic complexity, heavenly harmonies, psychedelic textures, etc). The album has just turned ten this month, and not only has it aged beautifully, but it’s a record that truly sounds better with each passing year. It doesn’t sound dated, or resigned to a specific time despite that factor being central to its conception, and it’s remarkable to hear now just how much the indie landscape has shifted since its release.

Person Pitch is an undeniable product of the conditions under which it was conceived and recorded. In 2004, just before beginning work on the album, Panda Bear, aka Noah Lennox, moved from New York (and the country he spent his entire life in), to Lisbon, Portugal, got married to a woman he knew for less than two years, and was about to become a father, all while still mourning the loss of his own father who died of brain cancer that same year. Although he was beginning to raise a family in Lisbon, Panda Bear would still continue to record and tour with his band, Animal Collective, despite living on the other side of the world. In addition to all of this he was also dealing with the subsequent aftermath of leaving the only life he had ever known behind, with many people that he cared for chastising him for his seemingly rash leap into the unknown. These conflicting elements emerge all over Person Pitch; the optimism of being newly married to the love of your life while now having people rely on you for their survival with an incessant pressure to keep your shit together; the thrill of bringing life into the world colliding alongside the fear that you could pass well before your children ever establish a meaningful relationship with you. To my ears, the album plays out like the last breath of cherished youth before the burgeoning responsibilities of adulthood take complete precedence.

As soon as “Comfy in Nautica” pulls us into the world of Person Pitch by way of noise reminiscent of a roller coaster approaching a steep ascent over handclaps and a Hans Zimmer vocal sample, it’s very clear that this is unlike anything produced inside or out of the Animal Collective camp before or (as of ten years removed from its release) after. To be sure, elements of electronic music have been present throughout the albums of Animal Collective since the halcyon days of Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished found him and the group’s principal songwriter, Avey Tare, trouncing through the forest howling like banshees. But here, the songs are composed from the ground up through an unorthodox approach to using loops comprised of eclectic samples. The sources of his inspiration span the likes of classic rock, psychedelia, motown sound, IDM, dub, hip-hop, drone, and noise, but the songs found here never seem beholden to any one style. The one constant throughout the album is Panda Bear’s ethereal, angelic tenor that’s somehow capable of achieving harmony amongst the chaos of the surrounding arrangements. Although there’s a clear beginning and end to each song, with the way that the samples are employed it’s not hard to imagine these songs continuing to grow and expand well past each runtime, transitioning subtly from one sample to the next with a DJ’s finesse for all of eternity.

“Comfy in Nautica” opens the record as a declaration of purpose, and really, the beginning of the next era of Animal Collective’s artistic evolution. “Coolness is having courage/Courage to do what’s right/Try to remember always/Always to have a good time” Panda croons throughout the verses, delivering the album’s mantra of “be true to yourself”, particularly in the face of self-doubt, or when the outcomes of “having a good time” and “doing what’s right” are at odds with each other. After the integrity-imploring parade of “Comfy in Nautica”, the record transitions into the stunning, two-part psychedelic build of “Take Pills”. The song slowly opens to the sound of a horse-drawn carriage gliding across a cobblestone street alongside gentle low-end tremors and the slight patter of tambourines courtesy of a sample of Scott Walker’s “Always Coming Back to You”. Eventually these sounds ingeniously fold into an acoustic guitar bridge plucked from The Tornadoes’ “Pop’eye Twist” as Panda begins to chant “Take one day at a time/Everything else you can leave behind/Only one thing at a time/Anything more really hurts your mind”. Here, Panda Bear confronts his depression head-on, acknowledging his family’s history of mental illness, while refusing to allow pharmaceutical aides to dictate the the course of his happiness.

What I’ve continually found so striking about Person Pitch, among many other things, is how intense of a juxtaposition there is between the lyrics and the compositions of the songs throughout. Each song finds Panda Bear scouring through the vast history of recorded music, cherry-picking specific moments throughout various songs, some as brief as a second or two, and then building entire songs on top of the backbone of the loops constructed from these various samples. The loops are uncompromisingly dense, and utilized in a consistently complex and brilliant manner, but the themes present throughout the album are universal. While the music, despite its dazzling complexity, is consistently poppy and approachable, the lyrics exude anxiety from the darkest recesses of Noah’s mind. The avant-garde production techniques remain grounded through the humanity of his lyrics, and this coupled with his stellar tenor consistently producing some truly mind-blowingly gorgeous harmonies cement its place as a record immensely ahead of its time while steeped in timelessness.

The pacing is superb throughout, and the way that the songs (and the songs within the songs) transition makes Person Pitch feel far more reminiscent of a DJ set than a full-blown LP. Case in point, the album has two roughly twelve and a half minute songs separated only by “I’m Not” with two songs on each other side. Both “Good Girl/Carrots” and “Bros” are broken up into three different movements, each with samples that transition brilliantly and take the song to a very different place than from where it began, while pulling off the rare trick of legitimately sounding like natural transitions. “Good Girl” begins with Panda chanting above sputtering synths and a steady tabla rhythm before reaching a wall of sound composed of manipulated field recordings that lead into “Carrots”. Over low-pitched piano stabs, and restless hi-hats Lennox eases into the song’s spell-binding second movement while throwing shade at tastemaker groupthink. Eventually the song makes its way into the second half of “Carrots”, with the piano having evaporated from the mix entirely, leaving a lurching bass in its place as we’re lead to the song’s glorious conclusion. “Carrots” ends on a similar note to the one that the album began on, with Panda reminding us not to forsake our self-worth in the pursuit of fitting in “Get your head out from those mags and websites that try to shape your style/Take a risk just for yourself and wade into the deep end of the ocean”.

“Bros”, the other one of these epic songs present on Person Pitch, is perhaps the most impressive song that Panda Bear has penned to date. The unmistakable coo of an owl kicks things off before the merry-go-round music box loop assembled from a sample of The Tornadoes’ “Red Roses and a Sky of Blue” looms into view. The entire song is one long message to his older brother Matt in an attempt to get him to stop trying to intervene in Noah’s life, reminding Matt that he doesn’t know everything about what's best for Noah. As the song continues to unfold, it begins to take on a drastically different shape. The tempo picks up considerably, with other elements such as the shrill shriek of children, an incessant shuffle of maracas, and a procession of mesmerizing hi-hats blending into the mix. Before long a sample of the acoustic guitar break in Cat Stevens’ “I’ve Found a Love” intertwines with a sample of the backing vocals from The Equals’ “Rub-a-dub-dub” resulting in a deeply immersive collision of sounds. With his vocals thoroughly drenched in reverb, Panda Bear leads the song to it’s bustling conclusion “Who are you to tell me how when you’ve problems of your own/I do love you and I want to hold on to you for always” by remaining firm in his convictions of independence and pointing out the glaring hypocrisy in his brother’s approach, while still allowing some compassion for his intentions to shine through.

While thoroughly grounded within the realms of psychedelic pop and experimental electronica, there’s still quite a bit of variation to be found throughout. “I’m Not” provides a much needed breather after the colossal “Bros”, both slowing down the pace and ramping up the space. “I’m Not” unwinds patiently with one of Panda’s finest vocal melodies to date floating eerily above disembodied operatic harmonies and sustained synth textures as he sings about the unyielding terror that’s risen in the midst of approaching fatherhood. “Search for Delicious” is the only track here that doesn’t really scan as a song so much as an extended drone interlude. Over static, chirping, droning synths, heavy modulation, and a procession of vocal effects, Panda Bear sounds as if he could be singing from another plane of existence entirely. It isn’t nearly as well layered, melodically superb, or interesting to listen to as the rest of what’s found here, but in that sense it provides a refreshing respite from the overwhelming density of the rest of the music. Plus, it works wonders as a transition from the sprawling “Good Girl/Carrots” to the uplifting communal sing-along “Ponytail”. “Ponytail”, in all its glowing simplicity, is an immensely fitting conclusion. Having thoroughly come to terms with his demons, Panda Bear ends the album on an uplifting note as he sings about never wanting to stop growing as a person over warm, sparse piano chords.

Although far from universal accessibility, experimental music is rarely this bright and communal. The album has been thoroughly embraced by a myriad of different musicians, and you can hear traces of the essence of Person Pitch in an ample number of psychedelic-leaning acts that have come to prominence since; through the hazy, reverb-drenched synth pop of chillwavers like Toro y Moi and Washed Out, to the blissful, low-end psychedelia of Youth Lagoon, to even the populist shards of psych rock that Tame Impala bring to the table. You can clearly outline Panda Bear’s solo output, as well as that of Animal Collective’s, by dividing the entirety of both bodies of work into that of pre/post Person Pitch camps. This was the catalyst that triggered the second half of Animal Collective’s artistic evolution (Strawberry Jam, Water Curses, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Fall Be Kind, and Centipede Hz certainly wouldn’t have been possible without Person Pitch), and was instrumental in the process of expanding their sound into uncharted territory, thus cementing the band’s status as one of the most dynamic, eclectic, and consistently rewarding of the century thus far. It not only turned Panda Bear into a full-fledged solo artist in his own right, but formed a seismic crater within the world of indie that continues to pay dividends to this day. There will be plenty of albums in the future that (intentionally or accidentally) mine the DNA of Person Pitch in order to create something new (whether fresh, forgettable, or anywhere in-between), but nothing will ever perfectly recreate the sun-soaked atmosphere of Lisbon that was magically captured over a decade ago, and then crystallized into an artifact of pure, unbridled admiration of artistry and self-love.

Essentials: “Bros”, “Good Girl/Carrots”, “Take Pills”

#panda bear #person pitch #paw tracks