Reset
Panda Bear’s music has always felt connected to the innocence and melancholy of ’60s pop, but *Reset* is the first time he’s made the connection so explicit. Built on simple loops of often familiar songs (The Drifters’ “Save the Last Dance for Me,” The Everly Brothers’ “Love of My Life”), the music here is both an homage to a bygone style and a rendering of how that style could play out in a modern context—in other words, time travel. Together with Sonic Boom—formerly of Spacemen 3 and himself an expert interpreter of ’60s pop and psychedelia—he gives you his handclaps (“Everyday”) and heartaches (“Danger”) and windswept *sha-la*s (“Edge of the Edge”). But they also summon the fatalism that made artists like The Shangri-Las so bewitching (“Go On”) and the space-age wonder that characterized producers like Joe Meek and the early electronic musician Raymond Scott (“Everything’s Been Leading to This”). And like the supposedly basic teenage sounds it came from, *Reset*’s smile conceals a yearning and complexity that runs deep.
Sharing equal billing for the first time, longtime collaborators Noah Lennox and Peter Kember achieve an intoxicating mind meld over a sample-heavy tribute to 1960s pop.
The Spacemen 3 and Animal Collective musicians unite for an album full of magical nostalgia
The collaboration between Animal Collective and Spacemen 3 members infuses new life into samples from pop music's earliest era.
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The future is envisioned through a time capsule of atomic America in Reset, the first joint album from collaborators Panda Bear (Noah Lennox of Animal Collective) and Sonic Boom (Pete Kember, formerly of Spacemen 3).
Panda Bear and Sonic Boom go way back. A mention in ‘Person Pitch’’s liner notes (2007) and an appreciative MySpace message led to Sonic Boom producing
Panda Bear and Sonic Boom's new album Reset is a distinctly enjoyable listening experience from the two psychedelic cadets
Panda Bear & Sonic Boom’s ‘Reset’ revels in the sounds of ‘50s and ‘60s pop but lacks the hooks that made that era so indelible.
Reset by Panda Bear & Sonic Boom album review by Robert Duguay. The duo's full-length is out today via Domino Records and DSPs
Kasabian get sensitive following Tom Meighan’s departure; Megan The Stallion is a master of form; Panda Bear & Sonic Boom are a summer treat