Panda Bear teases his new album with latest single, Token

15 January 2019 | 9:00 pm | Hayden Davies
Originally Appeared In

The Animal Collective founding member will release his new album, Buoys, on February 8th..

Header image painted by Hugo Oliveira, photography by Fernanda Pereira.

Ever since launching the project way back in 1999, Panda Bear - the solo project of Animal Collective founding member Noah Lennox - has used the alias to experiment with warping, left-field electronica that extends beyond the already-innovatory Animal Collective sound, taking on inspiration from acts including Aphex Twin to create sprawling, synth-driven works that are easy to lose yourself in. His forthcoming album, February 8th's Buoys, is set to spotlight this twisting electronic sound front-and-centre, mixing Lennox's signature bright vocal with multi-faceted and thick-textured productions that range from club-centric synthy pulses to soft guitar - combining deep experimentation with what Lennox describes as something "familiar to a young person’s ears."

"The last three records felt like a chapter to me, and this feels like the beginning of something new," continues Lennox on the upcoming Buoys and with the album's first teases, it's obvious what he means. Dolphin, its first single, and the just-released Token are both acts that certainly sit within Panda Bear's unique realm but in a bit of a different way, the former combining clever sampling and darting synth samples with strumming guitar and Lennox's crooning vocal, while the latter, released today, offers something a little more accessible - pitching up his vocal and uniting it with crisp percussion and soft guitar that gradually, is met with warped samples. It arrives with a video directed by producer and musician Dean Blunt which ends up as wild as expected (it's semi-reminiscent of Young Thug's infamous Wyclef Jean video), so watch it all below and pre-order Buoys HERE.

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