About this Event
Two decades since debuting as the masked-and-nicknamed drummer and vocalist of Animal
Collective, Noah Lennox has led so many creative lives, navigated so many different styles, and
been part of so many beloved recordings, that it can be easy to overlook just how consistent his
creative vision has remained. From landmarks solo albums like 2007’s Person Pitch and 2015’s
Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, to breakthroughs with Animal Collective like 2004’s Sung
Tongs and 2009’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, to his boundary-pushing collaborations with Daft
Punk and Solange, Dean Blunt and Paramore, all of his work followed an instantly identifiable
emotional throughline while influencing multiple generations and genres of artists.
On Sinister Grift, Lennox’s first solo album in five years, he has returned with another statement
that feels equally cumulative and unprecedented in his catalog. While his solo records have
ranged from starkly intimate expressions of grief to colorful, electronic opuses, his music has
never before sounded so warm and immediate. Working in his Lisbon, Portugal home studio
with Animal Collective bandmate Josh “Deakin” Dibb, Lennox transforms Panda Bear into
something resembling an old-school rock ensemble, playing nearly all the instruments himself
and inviting kindred spirits into the process such as Cindy Lee, Spirit of the Beehive’s Rivka
Ravede, and—for the first time on a Panda Bear solo album—each of his Animal Collective
bandmates.
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Sinister Grift plays like a tender, unflinching gaze into the human psyche. Where Lennox’s
graceful, elegant pop melodies have often been filtered through funhouse mirrors of samples,
loops, and effects, here they are backed mostly by simple arrangements of electric guitars,
bass, keys, and drums. And yet, Lennox can make even these traditional sounds feel newly
shimmering and psychedelic, touched by strange beams of light as if we are observing them as
submerged in clear water.
While Sinister Grift is yet another reinvention in a career filled with them, few albums from
Panda Bear have felt so instantly familiar and inviting. These qualities are partially due to
Lennox’s chosen collaborators—each member of Animal Collective contributes to the record,
and even Lennox’s daughter, Nadja, recites a poem in the lapping, beatific “Anywhere But
Here.” Lennox also opens his circle to new collaborators such as Rivka Ravede, the vocalist of
the Philadelphia electro-psych group Spirit of the Beehive, who provides uplifting harmonies in
“Praise” and “Ends Meet.” Cindy Lee, aka the hypnagogic songwriter and drag performer Patrick
Flegel, makes a striking appearance with a climactic, kinetic guitar solo on the closing
“Defense.” Somewhere between a fight song and a guided meditation, “Defense” is a vivid
encapsulation of Lennox’s current outlook—surging forward with a persistent rhythm, dazzling
melodies, and a series of escalating hooks that alternate between pleas of vulnerability (“I’m in
deep/I could use you by my side”) and unwavering persistence. Accompanied by Flegel’s silvery
guitar playing, it radiates a sense of hard-won optimism.
Even with a wider group of collaborators, Sinister Grift remains a stunning showcase for
Lennox’s singular musical gifts. After honing his hook-centric pop songwriting on 2022’s Reset,
a collaboration with producer and former Spacemen 3 member Sonic Boom, and reaching
ecstatic new peaks with Animal Collective on 2022’s Time Skiffs and 2023’s Isn’t It Now?, he
now applies a deeper focus to his solo work. Highlights like “Ends Meet” and “Just As Well”
represent new ideals for Lennox’s pop songwriting: songs engineered to get you humming along
before the first verse is over while still finding ways to thrill and upend your expectations.
Elsewhere on the record, Lennox delivers some of his most affecting vocal performances to
date—particularly on the heartbreaking ballad “Elegy for Noah Lou”—alongside some of his
most intimate and unguarded lyrics.
“Engine’s running/I can feel the miles,” he sings in the deceptively sunny “50mg,” a lyric whose
wearied perspective—closer to classic country than the imagistic dreamworlds he has more
frequently traveled—is hard to imagine arriving at any previous point in his catalog. From the
dubby snare that introduces the rousing opener “Praise” to the glammy, triumphant outro of
“Defense,” Sinister Grift follows a trajectory that dips from light to darkness, ultimately landing
on something resembling hope. In a poem recited by Lennox’s daughter early in the record, she
offers some encouragement about being true to ourselves amid the chaos of life: “Act well, love
well, treat well, regardless of the return,” she recites in Portuguese. “Because what others do is
not up to us.” Sinister Grift feels like a testament to the miles traveled and the miles ahead,
never losing sight of the beauty of each passing moment.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
40 Watt Club, 285 West Washington St, Athens, United States
