Animal Collective member Panda Bear (a.k.a. Noah Lennox) boldly returns with his long-awaited third solo record Person Pitch. Years in the making, Person Pitch marks a dramatic departure from Panda Bear’s previous solo record Young Prayer, with acoustic instruments replaced by samplers and electronics.

Fusing Panda’s dramatic life changes over the past few years (marriage, moving to Lisbon, becoming a father) with his ever-increasing sonic palette (standouts include Caetano Veloso, Berlin Techno, Scott Walker, and Kylie Minogue), Person Pitch is suffused with the kind of feel good modern toe-tapping pop that seems harder and harder to find these days.

Mistletone feels that the passing of time will show Panda Bear’s Person Pitch sitting alongside the great solo albums of Paul McCartney, George Michael, and Ghostface Killah. Luckily we don’t have to wait.

"PERSON PITCH evokes the sunshine of Lennox's adopted Lisbon, Portugal home. But it's the kind of light best experienced with eyes closed-- with the rays filtered through eyelids, turning the world into various shades of red and orange. You can feel the warmth pouring out of the music and see abstractions of its inspirations...hearing it all together in one place and listening to it all at one time is both overwhelming and inspirational."
- Pitchfork (9.5 out of 10)

"THERE'S A BOYISH buoyancy to the sound of Person Pitch, a pure-hearted nobility. The album's core emotions - awe, curiosity, rejoicing, tenderness - are precisely the things that age and experience tends to erode. At once Sixties-redolent yet timeless and perennially applicable, the album's open-hearted spirit is crystallised in the chorus to 'Ponytail'. Lennox sings: 'When my soul starts growing, it gets so hungry/ I wish it never would, never would, never would stop growing.'" - The Guardian (five stars)

"OPENING with handclapping and a mantra to 'try to remember always, just to have a good time', the third solo album from Animal Collective's Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) sets itself up like a lost Beach Boys experiment made at the height of Brian Wilson's creativity and LSD intake. Using only a guitar and scavenged audio samples, Panda Bear composes exquisite pop melodies to which he adds sweet vocals and multilayered harmonies. Bros, one of two 12-minute masterpieces, starts with owl hoots and 1950s guitar that grow into a galaxy of astounding hooks and dance-inducing rhythms. Later songs such as Search for Delicious, with its Wolfgang Voight influence, certainly make things freakier, but Panda never forfeits his sense of joy and celebration. Familiar, yet crammed with originality, Person Pitch is the kind of record your kids will find in 20 years and come to you with mouths agape. Then you'll smile and say, 'Ah, you've found Panda Bear. Good. Enjoy.'" -
The Australian newspaper (four and a half stars)