Album Info

Person Pitch

Person Pitch

By Panda Bear

Alternative - 2007

In 2007, no one saw Person Pitch coming. The third solo album from Animal Collective member Noah Lennox—recording as Panda... more

Tracklist

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About Person Pitch

In 2007, no one saw Person Pitch coming. The third solo album from Animal Collective member Noah Lennox—recording as Panda Bear—was an absolute revelation to anyone who’d been closely following not only his music, but the general trajectory of indie as a whole. Person Pitch’s bright and melancholic electronic pop sound was worlds away from his previous record, 2004’s meditative and monastic Young Prayer. And though the wild-eyed melodic bursts of Animal Collective’s 2004 breakout Sung Tongs gestured towards Person Pitch’s impossibly lush Brian Wilson-isms, nothing about Sung Tongs’ sparse structure hinted at the absolute swarm of sound Lennox would conjure on this landmark of an album. Beyond creating its own totally unique sonic world, Person Pitch proved massively influential on an entire generation of DIY musicians, and is considered one of the building blocks for the 2010s chillwave subgenre. Its reach extended to the other members of Animal Collective themselves, who drew from Lennox’s love of the low end for their own epochal Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2009. Despite Person Pitch’s seismic impact on indie, its seven songs—five relative miniatures anchored by two sweeping epics (the oceanic “Bros” and the hypnotic raga of “Good Girl/Carrots”)—have an intimate, homespun feel. It’s electronic music with an unusual tactility; you can practically feel Lennox’s fingers press the buttons on the Boss SP-303 sampler that he used to assemble the album. His lyrics are achingly personal, even as they resemble sparse mantras and nakedly sincere koans, from his meditations about depression on the gently shaking “Take Pills”’ to the devotional pleas for authenticity on the booming “Comfy in Nautica.” Anchoring it all is Lennox’s uncanny beam of a voice, which rings like a bell and carries a distinct loveliness. It’s a record that, beneath thickets of dense and disorienting sound, isn’t afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve—a sense of honest expression that has cemented Person Pitch as a generational classic, and defines Lennox’s singular career as a whole.