Music

Panda Bear's Noah Lennox explains why 'Meets the Grim Reaper' is like playing golf

by Josiah Hughes

Whether through Panda Bear, as a founding member of Animal Collective — the world’s biggest art rock band this side of Radiohead — or via one of his many side projects, Noah Lennox’s creative output lends him a sense of mystery. His music is otherworldly and often ethereal, suggesting that he might not be from this planet. Still, while promoting his new album, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, he’s down-to-earth, humble, and straightforward.

“I’m happy to talk about whatever you like,” he says, before admitting that he’s heard the same questions many times — what does the title of the album mean? How has living in Lisbon for the last decade affected his music? Again, he reiterates, he’ll answer those questions again if I want.

It’s understandable that there’d be some repetition. In promoting Grim Reaper, Panda Bear has been on a tear of print and radio interviews. “This is the most I’ve ever done by a factor of about four, I’d say,” he tells me, explaining that he’s still got a full day of interviews ahead of him. Still, the gruelling schedule has left him unfazed; he’s never annoyed about it, he just fears he’s running out of things to say. “There was a couple of days where I did like 13 or 15 interviews in a day, and that was kind of… by the end of those days I would sort of feel like I was really boring to talk to, I guess.”

Though he’s never been particularly secretive, why is he suddenly doing the major press tour? “I really like this one,” he says of Grim Reaper. “I was really happy about the way it came out. And I suppose, just wanting to do everything I can to support the album and inspired to talk about it a lot.”

As could be expected before rolling out a new release, Lennox felt a sense of anxiety. The album marks his first solo full-length since Panda Bear’s 2011 effort Tomboy, and his first major output since Animal Collective’s divisive 2012 release Centipede Hz. Ultimately, Lennox wants his work to be understood. “I want people to like it as much as I do. There’s always anxiety for me.”

“I care about all of it,” he continues. “When you make something — unless you just make something for yourself, which is fine — it’s like the creation of some form of communication. You’re trying to express something to somebody else. So you’re hoping that that message is received on some level, and appreciated. Beyond just somebody having an experience with the thing that’s in some way positive for them, beyond that I don’t really want to define the stuff. But I just hope that it can mean something to somebody else, I suppose.”

Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper certainly has resonated. At a point in his career where lesser artists would be experiencing diminishing returns, the new album is one of Panda Bear’s most vital, diverse and well-crafted releases yet, a mix of blissful noise passages and pristine pop.

As he’s always done, Lennox worked out the material by touring it heavily. “There was about six months where I had versions that I made with a bunch of samples, and I used two samplers live that I would play this stuff on and sing,” he says. Using recordings of the live versions as stems, he re-teamed with frequent collaborator Sonic Boom (of Spacemen 3) to perfect the recordings.

The live feeling is something Lennox wanted to capture in the studio, inspired in part by the loud, textural techno of artists like Andy Stott and Container, of which he’s enjoyed in the last year. “I feel like it’s more so the way energy is guided through the songs,” he says. “That kind of thing is inspirational for me, and I feel like I hope the stuff I make features that sort of harnessing of energy and power, I suppose.”

Working in the studio, the songs took different lengths to complete. “It really depends on the piece of music and how it sounds,” Lennox says. “Sometimes things come together really quickly — for example I feel like something like ‘Butcher Baker Candlestick Maker’ didn’t take a lot of time for us on the songwriting or production end, but ‘Come to Your Senses’ like, it was like seven months of mixing to get it where the both of us were happy with it.”

Though he’s happy with the album, Lennox hasn’t listened to Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper since it was mastered last year. In fact, he wagers he won’t listen to it again for at least a decade. “I feel like I’ve just started to listen to some of the early Animal Collective releases, so maybe in another 10 or 15 years I’ll listen to this one,” he says. Speaking of his band’s old material, Lennox found it engaging to revisit. “I really like them when I listen to them. There’s an energy to them that I really liked, I really responded to.”

Speaking of Animal Collective, Lennox says the band will soon begin work on their next LP. And while working things out live first has “been a pretty common way of working on stuff, he says they’ll do the opposite this time around. “I think we’re going to record first,” he says, saying they’ll enter the studio “hopefully this year — but we’re just kind of collecting the pieces at the moment.” He also says he’s interested in exploring music-making for films, commercials and video games.

Whatever he does next, it’ll surely maintain the high benchmark for quality that he’s established over the years. “I should say I feel very competitive with myself,” Lennox says. “Kind of like a golfer I guess. I’m always trying to beat my own score. Again, whether that happens or not, who knows. But that’s always the goal.”