Panda Bear

Noah Lennox’s sixth Panda Bear album sees the return of former collaborator Rusty Santos, who mixed Lennox’s Young Prayer and Person Pitch albums before a fruitful streak engineering sessions for DJ Rashad and the Teklife crew (side note: in addition to Domino being our downstairs neighbors, Santos’ studio used to be in the basement of a nearby deli that keeps the Lab crew caffeinated), with Peter Kember (Sonic Boom, Spectrum, Spacemen 3) helping out on Tomboy and Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper in his stead. The pair’s mutual fondness for 808s and deep sub bass propels the album, along with a liberal use of autotune, which allowed Panda to nail his trademark syrupy vocal parts in fewer takes: “it gave this texture and thickness to my voice that I was otherwise using reverb or doubling to get.” Lead single “Dolphin” suggests Buoys is every bit as supple and psychedelic as Person Pitch or PBMTGR while still breaking new ground for the visionary, singular artist.