The howlin' wolf in Panda Bear

(© Fernanda Pereira)

Has Noah Lennox, alias Panda Bear, looked death in the eye? Not really. Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, the fifth solo album from the drummer and creative electronic wizard from the Animal Collective stable, is no meditation on death; on the contrary, it marks a new beginning.

Over the last decade, Lennox saw his father die of cancer, moved to Lisbon for love (he is married to the Portuguese fashion designer Fernanda Pereira), and became the father of two daughters. All of which has made him a new man. “I feel like there is sort of a critical capacity that I didn’t have so much before,” the 36-year-old American told us. “There’s a vulnerability about this stuff that I didn’t know existed in me. But I wasn’t interested in writing a diary, so I tried to sing about stuff that was more universally concerned. Introspection is good, but it can easily turn into self-obsession and narcissism.”

“Lonely Wanderer”, in any case, seems to offer an overview of the path you have chosen.
Noah Lennox: I guess so. It came from a conversation I had with a priest who I went to high school with. He was describing to me his idea that living a successful life is being able to look back and feel OK about the choices you made. I thought that was a really powerful and useful idea.

Alongside the lyrics of that song, there are names of animals printed.
Lennox: Before I made the album, I went to see a woman who called herself a holistic healer. She could see three animals attached to my spirit: a wolf, an eagle, and a bear. I couldn’t figure out what parts of my character fit those animals, so the song became an exercise in trying to sort out my personality in light of those “totems”. A lot of elements of that were brought up weren’t so attractive. I found that funny. So the song is kind of a cartoony self-portrait.

On “Mr Noah”, we even hear wolves and dogs howling.
Lennox: The dogs are very symbolic animals. They represent that part of ourselves which is shepherding the various impulses we have. Particularly the more nasty or darker sides of ourselves. They are that moral compass within us.

Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper is a return to the sonic bravery of Person Pitch, the kaleidoscopic magnum opus you made eight years ago.
Lennox:Tomboy, my previous album, was like doing a black-and-white movie, which was reflected in the austere artwork. I guess this record is a reaction to that: I wanted it to be lively and fun again. The music has a bubblegummy, candy-like sugar to it, much like Person Pitch. There’s also a lot of complexity to the forms and the way pieces fit together. That’s why the cover of the record has these bright, vibrant colours, but also works as a latticework, a labyrinth.

You no longer seem to feel compelled to cut up beautiful melodies, for example on “Tropic of Cancer”, where you almost seem to croon like Bobby Darin.
Lennox: I feel like I’ve gone through a bunch of stages with singing. The Scott Walker or Sinatra thing, that kind of singing from the stomach like an older dude, is an attractive way of expressing oneself. It would have felt more like a costume when I was younger, but now it feels healthy.

“Boys Latin”, moreover, is pure Beach Boys immersed in dub.
Lennox: In high school, I was really into choral stuff. I was doing a bit of multi-tracking on cassette tapes at the time. It was the first time I could see more complex systems of singing and melodies. When I noticed that those distinctive melodies, that I though didn’t fit together, could actually work together to make something that sounds cohesive and harmonic – that was a magical moment.
There’s something about music, maybe more explicit in church music or spiritual music, in that it can evoke within us a sort of spiritual reaction. The type of music that makes us stop what we’re doing, rearranges our brain, I find that to be the music I really respond to. It’s always the target for the stuff that I make.

You created that latticework with “sample packs”, sound packages that are used by producers and arrangers. Were you short on inspiration?
Lennox: [Laughs] A lot of the new songs started from playing around with drum breaks. I had found a huge folder of audiophiles with typical drum breaks online, some of which I recognised immediately, because they had been used in well-known classics. I thought it would be a challenge to take this material that’s so common and try to craft something that feels like stuff nobody else could have made. The same goes for those sample packs, which I started using a bit later in the process. Those things feel like they have no soul, and the idea of injecting myself into them was something I thought was a fun thing to do.

You collaborated with Daft Punk on their album Random Access Memories. Did that steer you in a new direction?
Lennox: “Doin’ It Right”, the song I sang on that record, was made in the middle of the recording process of my own album. Even though there’s a heavy feeling of Daft Punk on the song, what I brought to it was indicative of where I was at, creatively. It was a validation, a confidence-builder, the spark I needed.

What do you think of the way their music was marketed?
Lennox: I don’t know if that’s really my thing, but I found it a brilliant master plan. Very impressive.

Panda Bear • 5/3, 19.30, €17/20, Botanique, Koningsstraat 236 rue Royale, Sint-Joost-ten-Node/Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, 02-218.37.32, www.botanique.be