Panda Bear drops Bro's 12" / Animal Collective attack 2007

My new year's resolution for 2007 (first one ever) is to learn the drums. Over the last year, percussion has taken a front seat in my musical experience, and it's feels necessary that I know my way around a drum kit. With Liar's Drums Not Dead absorbing my life, and Animal Collective's Feels still on repeat, there's no better time to start making some noise.

It's also a perfect opportunity to talk about Animal Collective's lead percussionist and solo artist extraordinaire, Panda Bear. Over two years after releasing Young Prayer, Panda Bear is back with a gorgeous 12" called Bro's. The disc contains one 13 minute track and a remix of Bro's by Terrestrial Tones (Avey Tare of AC and Eric Copeland of Black Dice).

We have the shortened version of Bro's for you, but consider it just a taster, because the full release is a must have. As the song begins, Panda Bear creates a subtle rhythm track that he is able to loop throughout the song. It is this looped percussion that acts as the foundation for Bro's. From there, PB builds the song through swelling vocal tracks and sparse guitar notes. Compared with Young Prayer, this 12" has a much stronger pop feel. I've heard people using Brian Wilson references, and I definitely buy into it.

A key element to Panda Bear is the unified feel he creates throughout a track. Due to my deep love/respect/envy for DJs, I'm always impressed by an artist who makes an effort to weave tracks together, and construct a mini-universe within a song/LP.

On the Panda Bear agenda for 07 is a split with Excepter out this month, and a full length this winter.

[mp3] Panda Bear - Bro's (edit)

On the Animal Collective front, Panda Bear's recent chat with Pitchfork discussed several AC releases in 07: People EP will be out January 23rd, 3 LPs worth of live recordings out in May and the followup to Feels (hopefully) done by this fall. Check out the full Pfork article here.

Here is a track off AC's recently reissued live LP Hollinndagain:

[mp3] Animal Collective - Forest Gospel

Stream Bro's (Terrestrial Tones Remix) | More mp3s | Paw Tracks