COMFY IN NAUTICA

COMFY IN NAUTICA by Panda Bear.

Today's song is the 51st song we've posted to the blog, if my iTunes math is correct. Out of the previous 50, very few have been new or current, but we're going to change that this week. First is Comfy in Nautica by Panda Bear. Panda Bear is Noah Lennox, and he/it has a new album out this month, "Person Pitch," and Comfy in Nautica is the first single.

And I can't stop listening to it. As a Beach Boys fan, I've had to kiss a lot of frogs in recent years every time some crap indy band releases some "Beach Boys-influenced" record, usually meaning "whimsical" lyrics with "harmonized" two-part (or sometimes three part) choruses. Notwithstanding all that, I'm going to invoke Brian Wilson for this tune.

The Beach Boys comparison is valid here not only for the robust melody, but because of the otherness of it. You always get the sense with Beach Boys songs that there's an artificiality and concreteness that mediates the basic tune and makes it different, off, more interesting. With Comfy in Nautica I get the same feeling, even though you suspect it was made in Lennox's bedroom rather than in a big expensive studio. Comfy in Nautica is constructed with a limited number of parts (handclaps, backing vocals, chorus, verse) that are layered and sampled and looped. Doing it this way, Comfy in Nautica is a little different, off, more interesting than the tune would be were it recorded all in one take.

LISTEN.

Photo: Baldwin Belting.