life in slow motion

I love going on iTunes late Monday night because all the new music is released and I get to stalk around previewing songs for about 10 seconds since my attention span rarely lasts the full thirty. Most of the time I rue over the fact that a new release from the Jonas Brothers came out, or in this weeks case Kidz Bop 8023 or whatever number they're on now. But there's always some good stuff hiding there, you just gotta search it out.

I was super excited to see Panda Bear's new songs were officially released to download, since I had to listen to the contraband copies on Youtube before that. I've just started to listen to his stuff recently. Panda Bear is really Noah Lennox, of the hipster-adored band Animal Collective, which I've liked for awhile. If you've never heard their stuff, "My Girls" is a great place to start. I think it is their best song by far. So since I'm always hesitant to listen to an artist who "goes solo" from a great band, I hadn't listened to Panda Bear, but I wish I would have sooner. "Comfy in Nautica" is such a fantastic song off of Person Pitch. It's as if the Beach Boys decided to throw aparty in the woods and it turned into an orgy around a campifre with everyone stomping in the background. The last thirty seconds of that song blow my ears off.

But I digress. "Tomboy" and it's B-side "Slow Motion" are now happily at home on my iPod. "Tomboy" is great, but I want to talk about "Slow Motion." The beginning tricks you into imagining you're about to listen to some old school rap song, but instead you're thrust into a world of controlled chaos. You've got a handclaps and deep synth beats pervading the sound, perpetually staying the same as is cycles over and over and over again. It's maddeningly constant as if daring you to tell it to stop. But it doesn't. It pounds in the background as everything else around it swells and changes with Lennox's voice echoing streams of words that aren't at all very coherent. It's as if his voice is just another instrument. Maybe in a few more listens, I'll figure out what he's saying.

What I love about his music, is it's almost trancelike. It's repetitive so it ingrains itself into your mind, latching on and refusing to let go. Yet, it still manages to capture my attention. With every listen I discover something new, uncovering the hidden treasures locked inside.

Youtube - Slow Motion

And just because I love it so much:
Youtube - Comfy in Nautica