Panda Bear

Panda Bear, already a major influence through his role in Animal Collective, has pushed indie rock in new directions via his solo output. Reverb-heavy vocal harmonies echo the Beach Boys, while sample-driven compositions draw on hip-hop producers such as Madlib and Pete Rock as well as atmospheric techno imprints including Kompakt and Dial. His 2007 album Person Pitch reshaped how samples functioned in indie rock, and Panda Bear’s fusion of electronic production, emotionally open songwriting, and psychedelic sensibility developed further on later releases including the 2019 album Buoys and the 2022 collaboration Reset with Sonic Boom.

Noah Lennox adopted the Panda Bear name in the late ’90s after drawing a panda on one of his earliest bedroom recordings. Raised in Maryland and Pennsylvania, he studied at Boston University and later settled in New York City, where he connected with future Animal Collective members Avey Tare, Geologist, and Deakin. Alongside work with Animal Collective, Jane, and Together, Lennox has issued multiple solo albums. The first collection of Panda Bear material appeared in 1999 on the obscure Soccer Star label as a self-titled release while Lennox and Avey Tare were still shaping what became Animal Collective. Those electronica-pop tracks stood far from the spectral folk experiments Lennox pursued in following years. His second solo album, Young Prayer, surfaced in 2004 as a murky, largely instrumental free-folk record shaped by the death of his father. That year Lennox moved to Lisbon, Portugal, where he met fashion designer Fernanda Pereira on vacation; the pair later married and began a family.

Person Pitch, Lennox’s third album and second for Paw Tracks, arrived three years later. Built from repurposed samples and dense vocal layers, the record earned wide popularity and acclaim while exerting strong influence across indie music. Lennox appeared on releases by Atlas Sound, Pantha du Prince, Taken by Trees, and Ducktails, and he remixed the Notwist track “Boneless.” For his next solo effort he shifted away from samplers toward guitar-based arrangements. Working with producer Sonic Boom, he issued the fourth album Tomboy on Paw Tracks in 2011. Additional collaborations followed with Zomby, Teengirl Fantasy, and Daft Punk, whose 2013 album Random Access Memories, featuring Panda Bear on “Doin’ It Right,” received the 2014 Grammy for Album of the Year.

Panda Bear put out the EP Mr. Noah in October 2014. Its title track also appeared on the fifth full-length, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, released on Domino in early 2015. The album again paired Lennox with producer Sonic Boom. It was followed by the remix EP PBVSGR Remixes, containing versions by Pete Rock, Andy Stott, Container, and others, and by the EP Crosswords, which gathered reworked and unreleased pieces. In early 2018 Panda Bear released the vinyl-only EP A Day with the Homies. For the sixth album Buoys, Lennox reunited with producer Rusty Santos, last heard on 2007’s Person Pitch. The pair shaped material aimed at younger listeners by adapting production approaches common in current popular music. The nine-song set appeared in early February 2019. In 2022 Lennox and longtime collaborator Sonic Boom issued Reset, their first official joint album after years of mutual work. Begun amid international COVID-19 lockdowns, the project found the pair pushing each other creatively, with Sonic Boom contributing vocals on tracks where he had previously focused on instrumental roles. Reset came out in August 2022 on Domino Records.