Gig review: Panda Bear at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
The Animal Collective drummer’s effects-laden, eccentrically unfolding yet richly tuneful soundscapes enchant in a solo show.
Approximately half an hour into tonight’s engaging set, Noah Lennox (aka the songwriter, singer, multi-instrumentalist and producer operating as Panda Bear) snaps a guitar string.
In the absence of either a back-up instrument or anyone other than the musicians on stage to manage technical setbacks, Lennox and the four-piece band of musicians from Portugal (where Lennox relocated from the US several years ago) stomp off stage to give the guitar – which, to be fair, has been bashed around a fair bit already tonight prior to the broken string incident – some much-needed TLC, prompting an unscripted break to the proceedings.
Under different circumstances, it could be difficult to regain the momentum lost because of the interruption. Not tonight, however.
Lennox’s work as the drummer and one of the singers of durable Baltimore, Maryland alt. rock institution Animal Collective (whose two most recent albums have presented a notable creative resurgence) has ranged from meandering psych-folk to harsh electronic templates and heavily dub-hued digital dream-pop.
Solo albums under the Panda Bear banner have tended to favour effects-laden, eccentrically unfolding yet richly tuneful soundscapes that at their best resemble Brian Wilson cooing his latest reverie underwater.
None of it has easily fitted the conventions of what we would call rock music or featured the levels of intensity required to cause minor damage to instruments, but that is where tonight’s energetic 75-minute performance is often headed.
With Lennox’s scratchy electric guitar (with an unadorned, sinewy tone slightly reminiscent of Gang of Four’s Andy Gill) front and centre of the mix, the set takes the more pronouncedly organic and stripped-down templates of excellent new album Sinister Grift and pumps them full of vitamins and oomph-inducing supplements.
One of new album’s highlights, the infectious Defense becomes an insistent glam-stomp, while Ends Meet reverberates with twitchy garage-rock energy. The effect of the subtle stylistic makeover is especially striking on more meticulously layered slices from the Panda Bear back catalogue: swirling opener Alsatian Darn loses much of its disorientating layers of echo and effects to more fully highlight the song’s melodic richness.
With Lennox and the band (a bassist, drummer and two musicians on keyboards and electronics) focusing fully on keeping the swirling compositions on the right track, there is virtually zero showmanship on display.
The pleasantly overwhelming light show and striking visuals that swirl, melt and merge on the big screen at the back of the stage compensate amply: we get disintegrating cats, multiplying Dachshunds hopping and skipping, a floating parade of middle fingers, and Dalai Lama with Gene Simmons’ tongue sharing the screen with twerking.
The hypnotic and haunting solo rendition of Inner Monologue – with the relentless churn of the visuals slowing down to reduce the sensory overload – that closes the proceedings proves that Lennox’s songcraft doesn’t really require any additional extras to impress.