Dublin Opinion

Can you remember the first time you ever heard the Beatles A Day in the Life? How about The Beach Boys God Only Knows?

I can’t remember Day in the Life, I seem to have always known it. I do remember the first time I heard Pet Sounds though. It was in a flat I shared with Conor near to Bernard Shaw’s birthplace. I’m not sure if the copy of Pet Sounds was Conor’s or Sean’s. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard God Only Knows, but it was the first time I played it repeatedly.

I also remember Sean singing a version of Day in the Life on his gee-tar. Strange the things that stick in your head.

Anyway, I haven’t been listening to new music recently, so last night I decided to start diggin some new shit, for a change. All that happened though was that I went back to someone I was already very familiar with, but who has a new album: Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear, aka the drummer with Animal Collective. The album Tomboy is the first of his I’ve listened to since Person Pitch. That album feed off the sound of Brian Wilson and Pet Sounds. Lots of ’space age’ style, low-fi psychedelic electro-effects and layering of sounds and loops etc, but there is always those echoing harmonies too. What is odder still is that Lennox can sing, or seems to be able to at least.

There was a time when every American ‘alternative’ band had a singer who wanted to sound like Neil Young. Well, no more…

I put this up to acknowledge that today was the first time I heard Tomboy, only what, three or four months since it was released? Not that I imagine I’ll need to remember.

Panda Bear - Tomboy by In House Press