Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper

Blissful mantras from this Animal Collective member. Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper fuses Tomboy’s dubby, drenched pop songs and Person Pitch’s more sample leaning tendencies. Each of the songs lock into a trance-like state, largely eschewing traditional song structure and instead opting for loops on loops on loops. One of the first great records of 2015. Soak in the warm Lisbon sun.

Favorite: 6, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 1, 7, 12

1. (3:36) ** Watery chords and distant vocal coos. Church chorus feel. Minimal percussion and gentle squelchy samples. Last ~40 seconds slightly eerie warped fade out.
2. (4:15) **** Oscillating glitchy textures. Little dog yelps. Becomes big bassy groove. Totally hypnotic repetitive singsong vocals. Noah at his most infectious. Nice little synth melody near the end.
3. (0:35) Squiggly ambient interlude.
4. (3:36) *** Pure pop and it’s wonderful. Love the vocals on this song. Really dense backdrop and an almost hip-hop beat. Outro becomes
5. (3:07) *** Latin groove. Vocals buried further back in the mix than other tracks. Vocal mantra that feels like it just go on for infinity.
6. (4:12) **** Hulking beat with flanged textures. Ultra catchy back-and-forth vocals. I can listen to Panda Bear sing to himself all day long.
7. (7:24) ** Starts with "Centipede Hz"-esque radio transmission garbled samples. Locked dubby groove and whirring ambient noise. Panda Bear meditates on artistic creation and progress. Last ~1:00 is instrumental alien noise outro.
8. (6:13) *** Mournful horns. Icy “Tomboy” atmosphere. Nice little Tchaikovsky sample. Really tragic gorgeous song about his father who died of cancer a few years ago. Much more sedate than the first half of the album.
9. (0:18) Super short glitchy instrumental.
10. (4:19) *** Super beautiful piano. Panda sings in a deeper register here. Very similar pace to track 7. Reminds me a little of Scheherazade from his last album.
11. (4:55) Slightly distorted Pandy vox and a bright upbeat melody. Not my favorite thing on this album but definitely has a pop appeal.
12. (5:05) *** Insistent synth line. Slowly more layers are added. Love the vocals on this track.
13. (3:43) ** Simple beat and whirring electronics. Peaceful, contented vibe. Transitions into a cool little flurry of noise before returning back into the main refrain. Great last song for a show.