Saturday 9.11
Panda Bear @ The Beach at Governors Island
Ferry departs from the Battery Maritime Building, 10 South St. 800-745-3000. $25 + $5 ferry fee. 8 p.m.
with Avey Tare, Teengirl Fantasy and Gala Drop
Panda Bear – Slow Motion [audio:SlowMotion.mp3]
Harmonizing vocals. Fleeting, spacey synthesizers. Warped samples. Staying on a single note for minutes at a time. The strangest and most head-scratching lyrics ever put to paper. If these things appeal to you, odds are you’ve heard an Animal Collective record or two in your time. The sometimes-threesome sometimes-foursome pulls sound from just about anywhere it can find it, blending together bizarre elements into outstanding music. Noah Lennox, who goes by the name Panda Bear, has the distinction of being as critically acclaimed in his solo work as his band’s, well, collective stuff—while last year’s AC album Merriweather Post Pavilion took top honors on the vast majority of year-end best of lists, Lennox had previously been showered with praise for his 2007 one-man disc Person Pitch. With a new solo album due out later this year—Tomboy—Mr. Bear is bringing all sorts of audio and visual wizardry to Governors Island, sure to make the late-night Battery Park crowd think the bartender slipped something funny in their drinks. Opening act Avey Tare, who shares vocal duties with Panda Bear in the Collective, is also preparing to release a solo work, titled Down There. Both the front of the CD and press artwork make use of crocodiles. Yep, that’s Animal Collective.02 Slow Motion