Animal Collective‘s Panda Bear released his psych masterpiece Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper last month via Domino, and this week we take a look at this very interesting short film featuring Noah Lennox and the record’s co-producer Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3, Spectrum). Shot in Lisboa, Portugal by Sam Fleischner this past October, the videomaker uses a peripatetic approach that incorporates jump-cuts and non sequitur into his dialogue with the musicians. Viewed walking around the streets of Lisboa, visiting the zoo, as well as working in the studio, Lennox touches on various aspects of the record. For instance, discussing the LP’s title, he explains that he was inspired by dub records from the 70’s, such as King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, and that he liked how it gave such albums a comic book feel. Later, discussing his working method, he tells Fleischner that he composes the instrumental parts first, and then, thru intensive listening sessions, sculpts the tracks while gaining a sense for where lyrics would fit it. The musician goes on to say that the lyrics form the “emotional” core of the songs, and that, for this record, he has taken efforts to strip out the more personal aspects from them, in an effort to keep the songs more universal. However, it’s at the film’s conclusion that we learn the real heart of Panda Bear’s working method. In a last telling nugget, Lennox explains:
“Its kinda good not to totally know what you’re doing because you know there’s gonna be those moments where you gotta shoot from the hip, and if you’re sorta locked into a very specific way of doing things, maybe you’re not as flexible. Sometimes you can make a mistake and deal with it in a way that not only sorta erases the mistake, but also kind of creates some sort of fresh new thing, or new movement, or almost like a little explosion…”
