Panda Bear – Tomboy

Bringing an aural sharpness in contrast to the kaleidoscopic, woozy swirl of 2007’s Person Pitch, Tomboy finds Noah Lennox further straddling the experimental/pop divide with increasing dexterity. Favouring song-writing and relatively more traditional instrumentation may blunt Lennox’s trailblazing for some, but those who appreciate more of a pop nous will revel in such directness. Tomboy’s four preceding singles make up the bulk of the first half with the title track setting a blueprint of inventive guitar progressions, looped samples and other-worldly reverb effects.

Lennox’s vocals continue their steady progression as a focal point, being lifted from their previous soupy production style by Peter ‘Sonic Boom’ Kember. Yet at its heart, Tomboy is a wildly eclectic and unpredictable beast, with tracks such as Alsatian Darn belittling their modest time-span by cramming in more inventive ideas than is strictly necessary and still sounding like a Panda Bear cut that was always meant to be. As insurmountable as it may seem for some, Tomboy stands as an absolute progression. [Darren Carle]