Person Pitch

Person Pitch
Studio album by Panda Bear
Released March 20, 2007
Genre Experimental, psychedelic pop, electronic
Length 45:36
Label Paw Tracks
Producer Panda Bear
Panda Bear chronology

Young Prayer
(2004)
Person Pitch
(2007)
Tomboy
(2011)
Singles from Person Pitch
  1. "I'm Not/Comfy in Nautica"
    Released: September 22, 2005
  2. "Bro's"
    Released: September 4, 2006
  3. "Good Girl/Carrots"
    Released: January 23, 2007
  4. "Take Pills"
    Released: June 19, 2007
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic [1]
The A.V. Club A–[2]
BBC Collective [3]
Entertainment Weekly A–[2]
The Guardian [4]
The Observer [5]
Paste [6]
Rolling Stone [7]
Pitchfork Media (9.4/10)[8]
Tiny Mix Tapes [9]

Person Pitch is the third solo album released by Animal Collective member Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear, released on March 20, 2007. The album was released to universal acclaim.[10]

Pitchfork Media named Person Pitch the top album of 2007[11] and the 9th best of the decade.[12] Tiny Mix Tapes ranked Person Pitch the best album of 2007[13] and also ranked it 8th on their 'Favorite 100 Albums of 2000-2009' list.[14] Additionally, the track "Bro's" was placed by Pitchfork Media at 48th in their "The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s."[15] Critic Simon Reynolds named the album as among the best of the decade.[16]

Person Pitch has also gained praise and recognition from other musicians. Artists such as Bradford Cox, The Tough Alliance, Diplo, St. Vincent, Black Dice, Christopher Bear of Grizzly Bear, Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer and Dan Snaith of Caribou all ranked Person Pitch as one of the best 2007 albums.[17]

Release history

Five of the seven tracks on the album were released prior to the album, some of them with different mixing and/or lengths. "I'm Not" and "Comfy in Nautica" were released together as a double A-side single in 2005. "Bro's" was released as a single on Fat Cat Records in late 2006. "Good Girl / Carrots" was released in early 2007 on a split 12" with the band Excepter via Animal Collective's own label Paw Tracks (on the single, the song is called, simply, "Carrots"). "Search for Delicious" was featured in 2005 on Volume 14 of music magazine Comes With a Smile's CD compilations. Finally, "Take Pills" was released as a 7" single on June 19, 2007. 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.
Initially Lennox wanted to name it Perfect Pitch, but eventually changed it to Person Pitch - "Pitch being sound and Person being a person and Person Pitch being a sound of a person."[18]

The album was recorded by Lennox and was mixed by Rusty Santos. Recorded using mostly samplers, the album is stylistically a large step away from Panda Bear's last album, Young Prayer, which was written and recorded after the death of Lennox's father. Lennox himself described the songs in advance as "super dubby and old sounding, like Motown or Buddy Holly just a little bit."[19] In fact, Person Pitch exhibits a much brighter sound, perhaps due in part to Lennox's move to Portugal. Seeing this connection and the change of atmosphere in his music, Lennox says:

A lot of the songs on Person Pitch are kind of sugary. [...] It's really mellow and sunny here [in Portugal] and I feel like the album really sounds like that to me. Also the stuff that's happened to me in the past two years, like getting married and having a kid and all that, has had a pretty profound impact on the kind of music I play and the kind of subjects I address. My approach to being a musician has drastically changed from having a kid and being a provider. It was kind of terrifying at first, I won't lie to you. It's made me feel like I don't want to fuck up, and I want to make sure I cover all my bases. And that's not to say that I suddenly want to make music that's going to sell a whole lot of copies cause I don't really think I could do that. But I want to make sure that whatever I'm doing, I'm doing it to the fullest extent that I can.[20]

Artwork

The artwork for Person Pitch and all of the related singles were done by Agnes Montgomery . About the decision to put this list in the booklet and the making of the artwork, Lennox said:

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. I knew I wanted to do a lot of personal thank yous and I knew I wanted to have the artwork from all the singles on there in a symmetrical fashion. So I needed another text panel, and I also thought that since I was sampling so many different people I thought it was appropriate to give thanks to other musicians. I'd never really done that before, and I also always had trouble when people were like "who are your influences, what do you feel influenced the music on this album." I was always like, "I don't really know." I don't listen to music at home a whole lot and the stuff that I do hear is usually because of the other guys in the band, or the stuff I would hear at Other [Music, a New York City record store where Noah once worked] every day. I don't have a record player or own a whole lot of CDs or anything like that, so it was always kind of a difficult question for me to answer. So this time I was like, I'll really try to think about what I feel led me to make this kind of music and give respect to those people.[20]

Influences

The following artists are listed in the liner notes as influences for the album.

Track listing

CD

# Title Samples Time
1 "Comfy in Nautica"
  • "Jisas Yu Holem Hand Blom Mi" performed by Choir of All Saints
  • "Tetsuo" performed by Geinoh Yamashirogumi in the soundtrack to the film Akira
4:04
2 "Take Pills" 5:23
3 "Bro's"[21] 12:30
4 "I'm Not" 3:59
5 "Good Girl/Carrots" 12:42
6 "Search for Delicious" 4:53
7 "Ponytail" 2:05

Vinyl

Side A

1. "Comfy in Nautica" – 4:04
2. "Take Pills" – 5:23

Side B

3. "Bro's" – 12:30

Side C

4. "Good Girl/Carrots" – 12:42

Side D

5. "I'm Not" – 3:59
6. "Search for Delicious" – 4:53
7. "Ponytail" – 2:05

Accolades

Album

Publication Accolade Year Rank
Tiny Mix Tapes Favorite Albums of 2007 2007 #1[22]
Pitchfork Media Top 50 Albums of 2007 2007 #1[11]
Tiny Mix Tapes Favorite 100 Albums of 2000-2009 2009 #8[14]
Pitchfork Media The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s 2008 #9[12]
Obscure Sound Best Albums of 2007 2007 #24[23]
About.com Top 20 Albums of 2007 2007 #2[24]
Resident Advisor Top 100 Albums of the '00s 2009 #84[25]
Gorilla vs. Bear 2000–2009 2009 #1[26]
Stylus Magazine Top 50 Albums of 2007 2007 #3[27]

Tracks

"Bro's"

Publication Accolade Year Rank
Pitchfork Media Top 100 Tracks of 2007 2007 #3[28]
Pitchfork Media The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s 2009 #48[15]

"Comfy in Nautica"

Publication Accolade Year Rank
Rolling Stone 100 Best Songs Of 2007 2007 #74[29]

References

  1. "Allmusic review".
  2. 2.0 2.1 http://www.metacritic.com/music/person-pitch/panda-bear/critic-reviews
  3. "BBC Collective review".
  4. Rogers, Jude (April 6, 2007). "The Guardian review". London.
  5. Reynolds, Simon (March 18, 2007). "ONM review". The Guardian (London).
  6. Paste (Apr 2007): 58. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  7. "Rolling Stone review".
  8. "Panda Bear: Person Pitch | Album Reviews". Pitchfork. 2007-03-22. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
  9. "Tiny Mix Tapes review".
  10. "Panda Bear: Person Pitch (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2007-01-04.
  11. 11.0 11.1 "Staff Lists: Top 50 Albums of 2007 | Features". Pitchfork. 2007-12-18. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
  12. 12.0 12.1 "Staff Lists: The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 20-1 | Features". Pitchfork. 2009-10-02. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
  13. "Tiny Mix Tapes Favorite Albums of 2007". Tiny Mix Tapes. Archived from the original on 2007-12-30. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
  14. 14.0 14.1 "Favorite 100 Albums of 2000-2009: 20-01 | Staff Feature". Tiny Mix Tapes. 2009-01-20. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
  15. 15.0 15.1 "Staff Lists: The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s: 50-21 | Features". Pitchfork. 2009-08-20. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
  16. http://reynoldsretro.blogspot.com/2011/04/panda-bear-tomboy-paw-tracks-directors.html
  17. "Guest Lists: Best of 2007 | Features". Pitchfork. 2007-12-14. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
  18. Interview, Má Fama radio, January 8, 2007
  19. Interview, The Milk Factory, April 2005
  20. 20.0 20.1 Hatch-Miller, R. "Dusted Feature: Panda Bear," Dusted Magazine.
  21. "Internet Archive Wayback Machine". Web.archive.org. 2007-12-30. Archived from the original on 2007-12-30. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
  22. "Best Albums of 2007: #30 to #21". Obscure Sound. 2007-12-19. Retrieved 2012-10-26.
  23. "Top 20 Albums of 2007". About.com. 2007-12-25. Retrieved 2012-03-15.
  24. "RA Poll: Top 100 albums of the '00s". Residentadvisor.net. 2010-01-25. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
  25. "albums of the decade | 2000-2009". Gorilla Vs. Bear. 2009-08-14. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
  26. "Staff Lists: Top 100 Tracks of 2007 | Features". Pitchfork. 2007-12-17. Retrieved 2012-03-05.
  27. "News". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2012-03-05.

External links