PANDA BEAR - bros

(12”/download, Fat Cat)

That Panda Bear is a funny freak, but on this short release he shows his true colours, or why is it that the guitar strum and drum rhythms used in the beginning are exactly the same as in the old Sixties kitsch song “Save the last dance for me.” Is it a rhumba? Don’t get me wrong, “Save the last dance for me” is a great song, it encapsulates a basic dilemma of love and the ensuing relationships, an awfully sad story and all the melancholy you’d want in a sad song, and I am a sucker for sad songs. I even like those versions that have a lot of strings and orchestra in the back as much as I like the crunchy and boasting rock’n’roll version of Jerry Lee Lewis. Has Tom Jones ever recorded a version of this? I bet he did and I am sure I would like that version as well. No I am not drunk, but when I am drunk I like that song even more.

Of course, “bros” by Panda Bear changes and mutates during the course of its almost twelve minutes length drastically, turning into a chant and then choral and then some choir, moves in and out of psychedelic areas of all kinds, uses echoes and strange sounds and noises (like the bird sound at the beginning and some shots are also detectable), and generally flows like a nice river that is still wild and uninhibted. It brings up connotations of a religious nature, especially Indian or at least Eastern religions, but I don’t want to dwell on this because the shared connex to deeply western pop culture in the woozy and pink chorus just has too many implications that are startling and puzzling and that would get me too deep into uncharted territory. It is okay for people like Panda Bear to go and roam these lands and like through the ages there are those that leave to discover and those that stay at homes and like to hear the tales of the other ones. And that is okay the way it is.

Back to the song, which is actually two songs, but since the share the same guitar / rhythm pattern it is obviously okay to fuse them into one long meandering stream of consciousness. The Animal Collective and Panda Bear have formed their own universe, closely connected to other universes neighbouring to theirs, and he right there in the middle of it and expanding in all directions at the same time. The term “free folk” (or the more derogatory “freak folk” has been floating around outside and inside these universes, but even if the never fit, and don’t do know, Panda Bear has never come so close as on this single (single? Any format needs a definition, obviously). The melody of part one of “Bros” also comes as close to a classical pop-melody as has ever been heard in the mentioned universe.

One of the overlapping universes belongs to flatmates Terrestrial Tones who provide the other side of this platter with a remix of “Bros” that loses the rhythm pattern I rambled about so much above and focuses more on the various bit parts, throws them around, mixes and fuses, sees what sticks and what falls to the floor, then picks up the remnants and mixes them some more. The flow on this remix is also steady, mainly due to a slowly pulsing beat that evolutes from a bass note to a nearly inaudible beep in the back before being fused into the background and then reappearing in new form. Nature doesn’t have a pulse like that, but humans have and that’s whereall the imitated birdcalls and wood noises start to pour sense into the mixing pot.