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Person Pitch

Person Pitch is the third solo album by American recording artist Noah Lennox under his alias Panda Bear, released on March 20, 2007 by Paw Tracks. Departing stylistically from his prior work as both a member of Animal Collective and a solo artist, the album was recorded using the Boss SP-303 sampler, with instrumentation largely composed of manipulated samples and loops, accompanied by Lennox's layered vocals. He described it as a collection of "super dubby and old sounding" songs inspired by his then-recent marriage, fatherhood, and move to Portugal.[7]

The album was met with universal critical acclaim,[8] and later ranked among various "top 10 albums of the 2000s" lists. It is noted for influencing a wide range of subsequent indie music,[9] including the chillwave genre and numerous soundalike acts.[10] Five of the album's seven tracks were issued as A-sided singles before the album's release: "I'm Not" and "Comfy in Nautica" (2005), "Bros" (2006), "Carrots" and "Take Pills" (2007).

Music[edit]

Person Pitch departs from the guitar-based sound and loosely rock-oriented format of Lennox's previous work, both as a member of Animal Collective and on his solo releases.[15] Instead it is constructed primarily out of "carefully mapped-out samples, minimal beats, and endless layers of his own reverb-saturated vocal harmonies."[15] The Sydney Morning Herald noted elements such as “watery electronics, washed-out samples and Beach Boys-y vocals,”[10] while AllMusic characterized the album as a "patchwork" of "repurposed samples" and dense vocal layers."[9] Slant called attention to the influence of dance and electronic music production techniques on the album.[16] Spin described it as "steeped in '60s-style harmony and post-rock noise," and "mash[ing] up traces of the Beach Boys with digital burbles, elevator chimes, and something that sounds like bubble wrap being popped."[17] Entertainment Weekly also noted influences from the "sunny California sound of the Beach Boys/Mamas and the Papas era [...] filtered through a playful avant-garde sieve."[18] Critic Simon Reynolds described its style as "a unique and refreshing sound [made] almost entirely out of percussion and his own multi-tracked voice," noting the influence of Lennox’s "teenage years singing in a high school choir."[19]


Lennox himself described the songs in advance as "super dubby and old sounding, like Motown or Buddy Holly just a little bit."[7] He acknowledged the Beach Boys as a partial influence on his vocals, but stated that "I feel like if you do multi-part vocal harmonies you're gonna get that no matter what, especially if you put a bunch of reverb on it or make it sound kind of spacey. [...] I certainly don't want to sound like anybody else if I can."[11] He invoked his time in a high school chamber choir as another influence.[11]

"I'm Not" and "Comfy in Nautica" were released together as a double A-side in 2005.

single

"Bros" was released as a single on in late 2006.

Fat Cat Records

"Good Girl / Carrots" was released in early 2007 on a split 12" with the band Excepter via Animal Collective's own label (on the single, the song is called, simply, "Carrots").

Paw Tracks

"Search for Delicious" was featured in 2005 on Volume 14 of music magazine Comes With a Smile's CD compilations.

"Take Pills" was released as a 7" single on June 19, 2007. The B-side contains the non-album track "Bonfire of the Vanities"

The artwork for Person Pitch and all of the related singles were done by Agnes Montgomery. The album cover artwork is a doctored version of a photo that originally appeared in an August 1969 issue of National Geographic.[20] According to Lennox, "Initially I knew I wanted to do something that was really symmetrical. The album is kind of symmetrical in terms of how long the songs are, and I wanted the album art to reflect that." Included in the artwork was a long list of artists who Lennox credited with influencing him.[11]


Five of the seven tracks on the album were released prior to the album, some of them with different mixing and/or lengths.


Despite Lennox's initial assertion that Person Pitch would be issued only on CD, it was announced shortly after its release that it would in fact be pressed on vinyl; the double LP was released on June 19.[21] As of 2011, sales in the US had exceeded 74,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.[22] In 2017, online record club Vinyl Me, Please. reissued the album on colored vinyl to commemorate the album's 10th anniversary.[23]

Paper Thin Walls Interview