Tomboy is the latest solo effort from much lauded Animal Collective member Noah Lennox who goes under the name Panda Bear. His last album Person Pitch was extremely well received by critics and fans, and struck a bright balance between accessibility and obfuscated indie music. His new album Tomboy once again walks that line, but the album seems to be a lot more about the feel and the texture of the album as a whole than about any individual song, melody or idea. It is a bright, airy album that plays around a lot with the atmospheric elements of Panda Bear’s sound, and eventually finds a strong rhythm and feel that evokes the sun and the spacious outdoors.

Again, for the most part delving too much into individual songs can make it difficult to really discuss the album as a whole. There are some really nice melodies and rhythms that he puts together on songs like the opening “You Can Count On Me”, “Slow Motion” and “Surfer’s Hymn” that are all fairly typical of the type of loose construction of most of the songs on the album. There is a airy, light quality to all of these songs, even some waves crashing sampels in there to really make this album a kind of loose amalgamation of sounds and textures that really evoke summer time or the beach. The songs are almost all slow builders, but this is a sort of atmospheric journey that seems to really go after more of a feeling and really succeeds in that sense.

Just as with prior Panda Bear and Animal Collective efforts, there is a certain amount of acquired taste to the album’s offerings, although from a purely atmospheric and sonic perspective, I think he has succeeded here in creating an album that really evokes a feeling and a time, irrespective of your taste for this kind of music. It tends to kind of wander around a little bit, and it does feel a little more varied than the sometimes way too repetitive Merriweather Post Pavilion, but by and large these are songs that slowly grow an idea or a sound up from beginning to end and really try to put you in a certain place or time. Considering the sort of ethereal nature of the way that Animal Collective and Panda Bear can often be, this is a really nice effort from Panda Bear here in using that obsurity to create a strong feeling of the album that does feel tangible at times. I would say that no one song or melody or rhythm in this album really shines and stands out, but it is a collection of songs that pull together to sort of evoke a dreamy, sun-drenched sort of ethos that works really well at times on the album.

(Note: You can currently stream the entire album over at Soundcloud here.)

“You Can Count On Me” by Panda Bear from Tomboy

“Slow Motion” by Panda Bear from Tomboy

“Surfer’s Hymn” by Panda Bear from Tomboy