Collected Animals

It was last March at Sitting festival! Standing! Lying! (the unique, Nantes), I met Panda Bear, barely an hour before a memorable concert, air and disorder, accompanied by the sound sorcerer Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3 former). Well into the thirties, yet we give Noah Lennox - one of the must-homing Animal Collective - easy ten years younger. Is that, encased in his sweatshirt XXL with the effigy of a white wolf - the kind that was found in the markets for 90 years, between Johnny Hallyday and Bob Marley ... - Lennox clearly has the look of teenager geek 2.0. Luckily, a whole generation of young musicians cite the boy reference.


What do you think of the current music scene?

It has so much music now, so many bands, concerts, so many things happening and rapidly emerging ... Before, there maybe 20 years, the music was a bit balanced in the figure, with a lot of money. Now, there are more opportunities for musical projects come to life. With the particular web, new things can happen very quickly, and be quickly forgotten ... But if you're willing to make an effort, if you are passionate, there are infinite reserves of music to listen to, to explore. It pleases me.

Are you interested in the music of your contemporaries?

I love Gala Drop, a Portuguese group. These are friends of mine, they are really good. Tropa Macaca, too. These are the two groups that come to mind, like that.

I say that because your music, solo or with Animal Collective, is difficult to reconcile with other groups ...

Indeed, there is a majority of groups whose music is easier to categorize than ours, but I still think that the groups that make relatively unclassifiable music are more numerous than twenty years ago, when I 'I started to really get interested in music. Now the trend is to mix full of kinds of music, whereas before, a band played that type of music, was part of a specific genre. You loved a music genre and thou revendiquais you. You wore the patch group and it was almost like a uniform. Now it's different, it's like a soup in which you put different ingredients. In the end, the flavors are more original, because it is never quite the same mixture, the same recipe. But the originality of a group may also be due to not much. For example, you have the impression that a band sounds like no other as it is a copy of another group with a slight change in instrumentation - a replaced by a guitar, for example keyboard . It is more common to see this kind of thing to be totally surprised and feel that you've never heard something like this before. So yes, really unclassifiable groups are quite rare, but I do not think it is impossible to find.

Articulates how your two projects, Panda Bear and Animal Collective?

For a moment, I led both projects at the same time but it did not work very well. I did not feel give 100% in each of them. So now I do one thing at a time. It is much healthier to work like this, I think. At the moment I am in Panda Bear, and this probably until the end of the year. The first things I outputs under the name Panda Bear were more or less demos, recorded on cassettes. I was not at all concerts. Then I started playing around with David, Josh and Brian that I was going to form Animal Collective. At the time of Young Prayer (2004), I did some concerts. Maybe six, all in New York, in Upstate coffee. It is only six or eight months before Person Pitch (2007) did so I did a tour with Ariel Pink in Europe. And that was just for a little break because with Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam songs were recorded.

Your musical references have very large air. In the cover of Person Pitch, you make a long list. In Young Prayer, a song like "Untitled 3" recalls Satie or Chopin ...

I love the little piano music. This is one of my musical influences. But I am influenced by many things, and it changes all the time. There are so many, the list is endless. In the cover of Person Pitch, I tried to make this list. But even in this case, I had to stop because there was no room. At one time I had the chance to work at a record store specializing in musical styles sharp enough. I had to familiarize myself with all sorts of things. And I have friends around me who are very curious listeners. They always make me discover cool stuff. I do not like to limit myself to one type of music, I am very curious. And I think it made ​​its way somewhere. But some types of music do not come naturally to me as a musician. This can be something I really like, like jazz. If I tried to play jazz, I would simply look ridiculous! But I still think that everything I listen, and I like, is in one way or another regurgitated in my music.

In this list on Person Pitch, there is Phil Collins and Cyndi Lauper ...

Yes. Completely. When I was a kid, most of the music I listened to was the radio. Driving with my father, we always listened Top 20 radio hits passing the time. This is where I heard this kind of music. Later, in Baltimore, where I am, I listened to stations hip hop, r'n'b, things like that.

Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, I think that's the name of your next album ...

Yes, at least until today. There was an Augustus Pablo dub disc - a player of melodica Jamaican - called King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown (1976). I always thought it was a damn good title. So I wanted to make my own version of it. I see it also as a title in the comic genre rather light. This is not supposed to be dark like "I mourrrrir" (smile). This is not literally referring to the death but rather what we feel inside when we change in our lives, when there is a big change and something dies in us. This is what the title refers, beyond Augustus Pablo disk. As such, I had in mind for a long time, for two years maybe. I often find titles before music.

I heard that you're interested much in fashion ...

Fashion is something that fascinates me, although I do not think you know much about this area. I have not studied sewing, patterns, etc.. but my wife (the stylist Fernanda Pereira, ed) working in this field and, logically, I am interested in it these past seven years. For me, this is a new world of creativity, such as art, painting. These artistic domains share of things, there are similarities but also differences. Fashion interests me because it is a form of art but also because it is a necessity. The people are not forced to listen to music, for example, but they must wear.

You live in Lisbon for a while, I think.

Yes, since 2004. I like living there. I really feel at home. This is definitely one of my favorite cities in the world. Everything is pretty quiet, but when you drive, oddly ... But everything else is really "take your time, have a coffee first." Coffee is also super good (smile). Portugal is a very peaceful country, but also had a dictatorship there is not so long. It's funny to see the difference there may be between the generation of 45 and older and those of 30 years and under. All young people speak English more or less for example, more than 45 years not at all. There is the sun, many beaches. Time is more or less California is comparable to San Francisco. The food is good, pretty simple. Many seafood, grilled fish. Traditional music, fado, is very moving. And for such a small country, they had sacred footballers!

Many artists / musicians American expatriates in Europe choose Paris, Berlin or London. How did you come to Lisbon?

It was after a long series of tours. Dave (David Portner of Animal Collective, ed), it took a few days off before returning home. Immediately, I loved. As soon as I got off the plane, I'm feeling good, but I could not explain exactly why. And I met a girl there. I felt I was ready to leave New York but I do not really know where I wanted to go. My life took shape with this girl and I loved Lisbon so I took a chance ...
 
You sing on a title in the famous Random Access Memories by Daft Punk. How have you found there?

I'm a big fan from Homework (1997)! This is one of my favorite bands. Early on, we began to ask their remixes of tracks from Animal Collective. We thought it would not work probably not but you could always ask, it only cost anything to try. The first time we asked was for the song "My Girls" (Merriweather Post Pavilion, 2009). They said they liked the song but they did not want to do a remix. I asked again for securities of Tomboy (2011), but they still refused discussed a possible future collaboration. A year later, they called me in RAM. A force that solicits for remixes, they had to get fed! This is perhaps what made ​​them decide (smile). So I came to Paris for three days in their studio. It was like a dream come true. We spent time together. They played me a lot of music in the state where it was at this moment. They told me what their intentions were on the album, they wanted to do. And recording is done very quickly.

And Sonic Boom, with whom you are about to play on the stage of unique?

I love Spacemen 3, Sonic Boom, EAR, everything that Peter (Peter Kember, ed.) We talked before music that sounds like nothing else, I think Peter is right in! It really has its own musical world, his way of thinking about music, listen too. He listens to the music like nobody else I've met. I feel I always learn new things with him, especially on the production side. I always take notes (smile). And in addition to the musical dimension, we became good friends. It's really a great guy.

How you met?

Apparently, Peter was at a party in Manhattan, and someone spent Person Pitch. I think he liked what he heard, and looking at the album cover (the famous list of influences, ed), he saw Spacemen 3. He contacted me for it at the base, to me say he liked my album, he was delighted to know that Spacemen 3 had me to some extent influenced. We exchanged a lot of emails and we thought maybe stall concerts together, but it did not happen. Then I finished recording songs for the album "Tomboy" but I do not want to mix myself. I think it is important to have an external ear on what you record because when you make a record, you spend so much time writing things, recording ... You're so inside the music it is quite difficult to put in the place of someone who will listen for the first time. You forget what may be feeling. So I often try to have someone who listens to it a fresh way. And I especially thought that Peter could do something cool with my music. It is confirmed!