Every Monday, 88Nine music director Erin Wolf shares a sonic gem she found using her nearly 20 years of new-music exploration experience. You can hear all her discoveries at 2 p.m. every Sunday on What’s All This: Adventures in New Music.
Musical kaleidoscopist Noah Lennox’s projects Animal Collective and Panda Bear have always been on the warmer spectrum of the art-pop genre, and his newest material is only getting warmer and more focused.
Panda Bear 2.0 almost sounds homespun, and Lennox’s vocals are the glue that cement things into a miniature masterpiece on this new rambler of a single called “Defense,” centering on cinematic classic rock with a wide-angle lens.
The song features Cindy Lee (aka musician Patrick Flegel), as well as Spirit of the Beehive’s Rivka Ravede and his Animal Collective bandmates. Is Lennox channeling his inner Bruce Springsteen here? We’ll wait for the rest of the album to find out how far things go.
Find Sinister Grift out Feb. 28 on Domino Records and “Defense” on this episode of What’s All This, along with all the tracks listed below. Just hit the “Listen” button at the top of the page, then join me on the 88Nine airwaves at 2 p.m. every Sunday for an all-new What’s All This: Adventures in New Music.
This week’s best new music
- Ducks Ltd., “Grim Symmetry”
- Silverbacks, “Look At All You've Done”
- Sorry, “Waxwing”
- Benjamin Booker, “LWA IN THE TRAILER PARK”
- CocoRosie, “Least I Have You”
- Panda Bear and Cindy Lee, “Defense”
- Mk.gee, “ROCKMAN”
- Hildegard, “Pour Your Heart Out”
- Blondshell, “The Summer Ends [American Football cover]”
- MUNYA, Kainalu, “The Only One”
- Sofia Valdes, “Already Yours”
- MRCY, Angels”
