Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | January 9, 2015 | |||
Recorded | 2013–2014 | |||
Studio | Miosotis Garage (Almada, Portugal) Estudio Namouche (Lisbon, Portugal) [1] | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 51:10 | |||
Label | Domino | |||
Producer |
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Panda Bear chronology | ||||
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Singles from Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper | ||||
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Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper is the fifth studio album by American recording artist Panda Bear (aka Noah Lennox). Coproduced by Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3, it was released on January 9, 2015, by the Domino Recording Company. Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper was preceded by the digital release of an extended play, Mr Noah , and two singles, "Mr Noah" and "Boys Latin". It was followed by the extended play Crosswords .
Having recorded his bleaker previous album Tomboy (2011) in a basement, Lennox wanted to go into the opposite direction on Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, aiming for a more "lively" and "busy" sound. [6] He began working on the album while recording Animal Collective's Centipede Hz (2012) in Texas. [7]
Sonic Boom, who mixed and mastered Panda Bear's previous album Tomboy, co-produced the album. [8] [9] The two spent two weeks in November 2013 refining demo recordings Panda Bear had made at home and spent five weeks, beginning in January 2014, finishing the album. Sonic Boom mixed the album on the Balearic island of Menorca. [10] About the album title, Lennox said "It's about presenting something that we don't have an easy time dealing with in a costume that's just a little bit more clown-y." [11] It was also inspired by the titles of 1970s dub collaboration albums such as Augustus Pablo Meets Lee Perry and the Wailers Band and King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown . [12]
We’re constantly forced through experiences that allow us to become something new—to create a new identity. Moving [to Portugal] was something like that for me. I had this vision of a future for myself as a person that lived in America, and then all of a sudden it was completely demolished.
—Panda Bear on the use of death as a metaphor on the album [11]
In conversation with The Quietus , Lennox called the LP "my hip-hop album" due to its extensive use of sampled breakbeats, many of them commonly used. [13] Lennox cited Dust Brothers, Q-Tip, A Tribe Called Quest, Pete Rock, DJ Premier, 9th Wonder, and J Dilla as influences. [7] The lyrical themes of the album center around personal growth, although Lennox wanted to discuss issues on a larger scale because he wanted to avoid "self-obsession or narcissism". [11]
The opening track, "Sequential Circuits", is a piece of neo-psychedelia that was described as "swirling" and "pure as a babbling brook". [14] "Tropic of Cancer" contains a harp sample from the Nutcracker suite and its lyrics concern the death of Panda Bear's father. His vocal harmonies on the song were compared to those of The Beach Boys. [15] [16]
In March 2014, Lennox announced a North American tour for May during which he would be performing tracks from the new album. [17] From July through September, he toured Europe and North America. [18] On January 11, 2015, Lennox played a Boiler Room set at MoMA PS1. [11] Three days later, he performed "Boys Latin" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon . [19] Lennox toured his show throughout Europe in March 2015. [20] He performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 12 and 19 and gave seven more North American performances across April and early May. [21] Lennox performed at festivals for the rest of May and mid-June, including Shaky Knees Festival in Atlanta, Lightning in a Bottle Festival in Bradley, California, Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona and Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. [22] [23] [24] [25]
Lennox released a mixtape called PB vs. GR on September 11, 2014. [26] On October 23, Lennox released the EP Mr Noah and made Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper available for pre-order. That day also saw the release of the album's first single, "Mr Noah", and a music video directed by AB/CD/CD. [27] A teaser video for the album, directed by Danny Perez, was released on October 29. [28] The second single, "Boys Latin", was released on December 15, and was accompanied by a music video directed by Isaiah Saxon and Sean Hellfritsch. The music video had its premiere on Adult Swim. [29] A "Boys Latin" remix by Andy Stott was released on March 2, 2015. [30] A music video for the track "Tropic of Cancer" was directed by fellow Animal Collective member Dave Portner and released on April 8. [31]
On January 4, 2015, Lennox began his global radio campaign to premiere nine new tracks from the album. Various radio stations from around the world each premiered different tracks. [32] Two days later, he launched an interactive website including music by him and Sonic Boom, videos by Danny Perez, as well as graphics by Marco Papiro, Patakk, and Hugo Oliveira. [33] A short documentary detailing the creation, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, directed by Sam Fleischner, was released on January 29. [34]
Aggregate scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AnyDecentMusic? | 7.9/10 [35] |
Metacritic | 82/100 [36] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [37] |
The A.V. Club | B− [38] |
Consequence | B [15] |
The Guardian | [39] |
Mojo | [40] |
The Observer | [41] |
Pitchfork | 8.7/10 [42] |
Q | [43] |
Slant | 7/10 [44] |
Spin | 8/10 [45] |
Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper was praised by contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 82, based on 34 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". [36]
Writing for Consequence , Adam Kivel lauded the "multivalent" production of the album but criticized Panda Bear's choice not to deviate from his signature sound. [15] Matthew Ritchie of Exclaim! commended the "pure breadth of his beat-making, his ear for expansive and deeply resonating melodies and his lyrics, which urge you to not go so gently into that good night." [46] Pitchfork wrote that "Grim Reaper achieves just the right balance of skull-splitting drone and head-noddin’ drive. In contrast to the unpredictably amorphous song structures that defined previous Panda Bear records, many of the songs on Grim Reaper lock into a looped beat and rarely waver course." [47] In a mixed review, Chris Mincher of The A.V. Club stated that the album "isn't too interested in taking on big challenges. Rather, Lennox distills the results of his electro-psychedelic experiments into simpler elements that pair well with (relatively) straightforward melodies and throwback hip-hop techniques", concluding that the album "doesn’t push boundaries so much as it delineates the contours of Lennox’s comfort zone." [38]
Publication | Accolade | Year | Rank |
---|---|---|---|
Pitchfork | The 50 Best Albums of 2015 | 2015 | 22 [48] |
Readers' Top 50 Albums | 2015 | 19 [49] |
All tracks are written by Noah Lennox, except "Davy Jones' Locker" and "Shadow of the Colossus", by Peter Kember
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Sequential Circuits" | 3:35 |
2. | "Mr Noah" | 4:13 |
3. | "Davy Jones' Locker" | 0:35 |
4. | "Crosswords" | 3:30 |
5. | "Butcher Baker Candlestick Maker" | 3:07 |
6. | "Boys Latin" | 4:12 |
7. | "Come to Your Senses" | 7:23 |
8. | "Tropic of Cancer" | 6:12 |
9. | "Shadow of the Colossus" | 0:17 |
10. | "Lonely Wanderer" | 4:19 |
11. | "Principe Real" | 4:54 |
12. | "Selfish Gene" | 5:05 |
13. | "Acid Wash" | 3:42 |
Total length: | 51:10 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Mr Noah" | 4:13 |
2. | "Faces in the Crowd" | 4:08 |
3. | "Untying the Knot" | 3:10 |
4. | "This Side of Paradise" | 4:34 |
Total length: | 1:07:15 |
Sample credits
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper. [1]
Chart (2015) | Peak position |
---|---|
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) [51] | 73 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) [52] | 136 |
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) [53] | 88 |
UK Albums (OCC) [54] | 49 |
US Billboard 200 [55] | 34 |
US Independent Albums (Billboard) [56] | 2 |
US Top Tastemaker Albums (Billboard) [57] | 1 |
US Top Alternative Albums (Billboard) [58] | 3 |
US Top Rock Albums (Billboard) [59] | 4 |
Country | Date | Format(s) | Label | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
Germany | January 9, 2015 | Domino | [60] [61] [62] | |
France | January 12, 2015 |
| [63] [64] [65] | |
Japan | Digital download | [66] | ||
Spain | [67] | |||
United Kingdom |
| [68] [69] | ||
Italy | January 13, 2015 |
| [70] [71] [72] | |
Spain |
| [73] | ||
United States |
| [74] [75] [76] |
Peter Kember, also known by his stage name Sonic Boom, is an English singer-songwriter, composer and record producer. He was a founding member, vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist of alternative rock band Spacemen 3, lasting from 1982 until the band's dissolution in 1991. He is now based in Sintra, Portugal.
Sung Tongs is the fifth studio album by American experimental pop band Animal Collective, released on May 3, 2004 by FatCat Records. The album, newly exploring freak folk, received high critical reception upon its release and was featured in best-of lists at the end of 2004 and the decade of the 2000s. Only two of the band's four members play on the album, Avey Tare and Panda Bear, a first since Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished (2000), which was originally credited to the duo and only later retroactively classified as part of the band's discography.
Here Comes the Indian, later reissued as Ark, is the first album by the American experimental pop band Animal Collective under that name, which released June 17, 2003 on Paw Tracks. It is the first release by the group on which all four members—Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist, and Deakin —perform together. Three earlier albums released by various combinations of these musicians were not billed as Animal Collective until later, however the 2003 album is now considered the band's fourth.
David Michael Portner, also known by his moniker Avey Tare, is a musician and songwriter who co-founded the American experimental pop band Animal Collective. He has released four solo albums, as well as three collaborative albums with Panda Bear which were later retroactively classified under Animal Collective's discography.
Young Prayer is the second solo album by American experimental pop musician Panda Bear, released on September 28, 2004. It follows his debut solo album Panda Bear (1999). It is his first since co-founding Animal Collective.
Person Pitch is the third solo album by American recording artist Noah Lennox under his alias Panda Bear, released on March 20, 2007 by Paw Tracks. Departing stylistically from his prior work as both a member of Animal Collective and a solo artist, the album was recorded using the Boss SP-303 sampler, with instrumentation largely composed of manipulated samples and loops, accompanied by Lennox's layered vocals. He described it as a collection of "super dubby and old sounding" songs inspired by his then-recent marriage, fatherhood, and move to Portugal.
Noah Benjamin Lennox, also known by his moniker Panda Bear, is an American musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and co-founding member of the band Animal Collective. In addition to his work with that group, Lennox has released six solo LPs since 1999, with his 2007 album Person Pitch inspiring the chillwave genre and numerous other acts. His subsequent albums Tomboy (2011) and Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper (2015) both reached the Billboard 200.
Merriweather Post Pavilion is the eighth studio album by American experimental pop group Animal Collective, released on January 6, 2009, through Domino Records. The group recorded the album as a trio featuring members Panda Bear, Avey Tare and Geologist, with co-production by Ben H. Allen. It is titled after the Maryland venue of the same name, where Portner and Weitz attended concerts in their youth.
Joshua Caleb Dibb, also known by his moniker Deakin, is an American musician who co-founded the experimental pop band Animal Collective. He is the most infrequent member of the collective appearing on only seven of the group's twelve studio albums. In 2016, he made his solo debut with the album Sleep Cycle. He also occasionally works as a carpenter during musical down time.
Tomboy is the fourth solo album by American musician Panda Bear, released on April 4, 2011 initially as an online stream and later physically. It was mixed by UK musician Sonic Boom. In contrast to the sample-based composition of the previous Panda Bear album Person Pitch (2007), the recording of Tomboy features a stripped-down sound built around guitar processed through Korg M3-M workstation modules.
Animal Collective is an American experimental pop band formed in Baltimore, Maryland. Its members consist of Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist, and Deakin. The band's work is characterized by an eclectic exploration of styles, including psychedelia, freak folk, noise, and electronica, with the use of elements such as loops, drones, sampling, vocal harmonies, and sound collage. AllMusic's Fred Thomas suggests that the group "defined the face of independent experimental rock during the 2000s and 2010s."
Andy Stott is a British electronic musician and producer, living in Manchester.
"Doin' It Right" is a song written and performed by French electronic music duo Daft Punk and American musician Panda Bear of the band Animal Collective. It is a track on Daft Punk's fourth studio album Random Access Memories (2013), and was the last to be recorded for the album. The song was distributed to American alternative radio stations on 3 September 2013 as the third single from Random Access Memories. Prior to this, it appeared on record charts in France, the United States and the United Kingdom due to digital downloads of the album. "Doin' It Right" received a positive critical reception, with some reviewers opining it as the group's best work out of the entire LP.
The Tropic of Cancer is the most northerly circle of latitude of the Earth's tropics region.
Mr Noah is the first EP by American recording artist Panda Bear, released in 2014.
Crosswords is the second extended play album by American recording artist Panda Bear. It was released on August 20, 2015 by the Domino Recording Company. This release features an updated audio mix of the track "Crosswords" from the version on his fifth studio album Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper. The other 4 tracks on the release were not included on Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, however, an earlier version of "The Preakness" appears on Animal Collective's 2011 EP Keep + Animal Collective and the deluxe edition of Panda Bear album Tomboy.
Painting With is the tenth studio album by American experimental pop band Animal Collective, released on February 19, 2016. The album is a follow-up to Centipede Hz (2012), and features contributions from John Cale and Colin Stetson. It peaked at No. 46 on the Billboard 200. Three singles were issued: "FloriDada" (2015), "Lying in the Grass", and "Golden Gal". A companion EP, The Painters, was released the following year.
A Day with the Homies is the third extended play album by American recording artist Panda Bear, released on January 12, 2018 by the Domino Recording Company. It was released only on vinyl, and then to streaming services with a new digital mix on October 31, 2019. Lennox played four of the five tracks live for the first time at the Desert Daze festival in Joshua Tree, California.
Buoys is the sixth studio album by American musician Panda Bear, released on February 8, 2019. It was preceded by the lead single "Dolphin", released along with its music video, and features collaborations with Chilean DJ Lizz and Portuguese singer Dino D'Santiago.
Reset is an album by Panda Bear and Sonic Boom. It marks the duo's first collaborative album; Kember had previously co-produced Lennox's Tomboy (2011) and Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper (2015).
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