Person pitch relies on sunshine and bright spots

By Jordan Sargent

Published March 14, 2007

The Beach Boys are brought up too often in rock criticism to describe bands with vocal harmonies, but there isn't a more apt starting point for Person Pitch, the second solo release from Animal Collective member Panda Bear (real name: Noah Lennox).

Lennox's first solo foray was the 2004 release Young Prayer, an all-acoustic response to the death of his father. It remains a haunting album, and many of the same strategies he employed on that album are present in his second. Most notable are the echoing, heavenly vocals that make both albums sound like they were recorded in a vast cathedral.

Person Pitch sounds exactly like what Brian Wilson interpreted by an Animal Collective member is expected to sound like: It's hazy, druggy and at times, brilliant.

If anything, Person Pitch most resembles Beach House's self-titled debut. It sounds as if it were recorded underwater, and Lennox uses spare, sampled drum taps and mainly guitars and keys to create a distinct and unique atmosphere. But where Beach House was a forlorn, dark album, Person Pitch revels in sunshine and bight blues and yellows.

The highlight here, and one of my favorite songs of the year so far, is opener "Comfy in Nautica." The echoes in Lennox's echoes bounce off each other, eventually becoming an instrument in which a lesser artist would have used something like a keyboard. But it's the song's martial drum thwacks that make it hypnotizing.

In the same vein, the 12-and-a-half-minute "Bros" loops twitchy acoustic guitar rakes into the album's quickest paced number. It's a song that gives new meaning to the idea of propulsive rhythm. If you're not willingly addicted to the catchy guitar part at the end of 12 minutes, you'll really have no choice. It especially makes great use of samples, as its second half evolves from simple beach music to near-reggae with thick keyboards and lazy, muffled Rasta chants. The song is an epic, and it's a blaring testament to Lennox's ability to amplify subtle differences between songs into stark changes while still working within the same sonic palette.

The same can be said about "Ponytail," which employs a kick drum (albeit a muted one) and female vocals for the first time on the album. The vocals do not sound out of place even after an album full of Lennox's echoes and paper-thin drums.

Lennox's melodies are the reason why Person Pitch works so well when it does, and so when his compositions become spacier, the album lags. "I'm Not" regresses into near ambience, and throughout the song's four minutes, it feels as though you're being suspended in a pool as a choir sings at you from above the water.

Following it is "Good Girl," which starts promisingly with rattled bongos but falls back into clipped and heavily distorted vocals. When the "Carrots" portion of the song kicks in, it's a breath of fresh air. Lennox drops in clearer keyboard notes and clattering cymbals in what is a welcomed return to the album's killer baroque pop.

Everything that you'll read about Person Pitch will be true: It's entrancing, enchanting, electric and alluring. But because of the purposeful distance Lennox creates around the songs, they don't stick. There are moments that resonate and melodies that'll bounce around in your head long after you stop listening, but this album feels like looking back on a weekend bender. As hard as you try to remember the great moments, it's the haze that's the clearest.