35. A colourful take on change
35. A colourful take on change
Aquatic shapes, and the ebb and flow of life.
suggested reading method
To best savour this artwork, please take a moment to eliminate distractions. Consider minimizing all other windows on your computer; putting other devices (phone, tv etc) aside; taking a deep breath, to the full extent of your lung capacity; and focusing solely on the “artwork” section.
Once you’ve processed that to your satisfaction, the rest of the post is optional reading, provided only to share my own impressions and reasons for choosing this piece.
artwork
“Boys Latin” by Panda Bear, 2014.
Lyrics (condensed):
Beasts don't have a second to think
But we don't appreciate our things
Dark cloud descended again
Has a dark cloud descended again
And a shadow moves in the darkness
Dark cloud descended again
Has a dark cloud descended again
And a shadow moves in the darkness
Beasts don't have a second to think
But we don't appreciate our things
interpretation
I’ve followed Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear’s work since falling in love with his Tomboy album while radio DJing in college. His subsequent album, Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper, delivers more of the catchy, Gregorian chant-like, experimental style that still charms me after all these years.
Often this sort of psychedelic music is associated with psychedelic drug use, and so it’s easy to interpret this video as a drug hallucination wherein the main character helps someone going through a bad trip. Even if this story was in some way inspired by drug use, I find it just as interesting to interpret in other ways.
For example: I could say this animation is analogous to my experience of being sucked into another world, when I lived in Japan at the time this song was released. Each day was so different from my prior Western cultural experience, I may as well have been underwater. I see transformation as the main character’s face looks shocked, then angry, then in awe of what is happening to them, looking at their hand at 1:50. In this way, the swirling colours and shapes around each character represent chaotic personal and emotional changes. I also love that the swells of these aquatic shapes are satisfyingly echoed in the back-and-forth of Noah Lennox’s vocal melody.
As humans we are constantly changing – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually – and often in ways that escape our own understanding. Maybe it takes an otherworldly experience, like this colourful trip or a reflective meditation, to allow us a birds’ eye view on our present self.
context
Panda Bear, aka Noah Lennox (b. 1978), is an electronic/experimental musician raised in the US and now based in Lisbon, Portugal. He often works with the band Animal Collective alongside his solo releases, which include 6 LPs since 1999 and a feature on “Doin’ it Right” by Daft Punk. As it happens, his next album with producer Sonic Boom is released tomorrow, August 12th.
Of the “Boys Latin” video, Lennox said, “I’m not a psychedelic warrior by any means, but that’s an element of music that I find to be very psychedelic: when everything mixes in weird ways and you can’t tell what’s what… That’s when quasi-magical stuff starts to happen; when things start tricking my ear and my brain. One of my favorite questions is asking people how they define psychedelic music. For me, it has something to do with things tricking your ear, when things are more than the sum of their parts. I feel like that’s the target always with my music, the psychedelic sweet spot.”
Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments!