‘Bro’s’ – Panda Bear, 2007
I’ve been listening to a lot of Panda Bear’s album Person Pitch, the much-hyped solo album by Animal Collective member Noah Lennox. It’s steeped in Beach Boys melodies and layered instrumentation – kind of a Pet Sounds for the 21st century, for want of a better analogy.
At twelve-and-a-half minutes, ‘Bro’s’ is the centrepiece of this album, and despite all the rave reviews from Pitchfork Media et al, it really is worth an objective listen on its own. The way this song builds up, from the first hoot of the owl, is compulsive. It’s obvious Lennox spent a lot of time on this, in the same way that time was spent on ‘Paranoid Android’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Kashmir’ and other mini-operas of that ilk.
The lyrics (the chorus is “I’m not trying to forget you, I just like to be alone”) add to the theme of tinkering on a project with the aim of bringing it to perfection. Or as close to perfection as is possible in music.
The song builds up through waves of pure Brian Wilson harmonies, inter-weaving melodies, shivering tambourine, and a real summery feel to it (in spite of the lyrics). Outside of the Beach Boys comparisons, which have been drawn in many other reviews, it’s difficult to find parallels in modern indie music. There is definitely a trend these days towards more ‘dense’ music (M.I.A., Beirut, Deerhoof etc.), but ‘Bro’s’ takes this almost to a logical conclusion, played out over twelve inspired minutes that’ll make you want to come back and listen again and again.
You can listen to ‘Bro’s’ on the Panda Bear MySpace page (check out ‘Comfy in Nautica’ as well). For an almost-complete version of the song, with a nice video, check here. But you’re best off downloading (or, in true retro style, buying the CD of) the album and listening on headphones. True head music.
