Panda Bear Announces New Album Buoys For 2019 Release

Panda Bear announces first new album in four years, Buoys, slated for February 2019 release on Domino. The Animal Collective member, born Noah Lennox, also released the new album’s first single, “Dolphin.”

Lennox’s bright, sincere voice front and center, with miles of space surrounding it, a guitar and some textured samples fleshing out the dubby sparseness and undercurrent of speaker-limit-pushing sub-bass low-end.

Buoys was co-produced and co-mixed by collaborator Rusty Santos in Lennox’s adopted home of Lisbon, Portugal. Lennox and Santos last collaborated on the landmark Panda Bear album Person Pitch, which had its 10 year anniversary last year.

Animated by their ongoing interest in contemporary music production techniques, Lennox and Santos envisioned something that would “feel familiar to a young person’s ears.” However, Buoys retains a deep layer of experimentation coursing through the hyper-modern production – a hallmark of Panda Bear releases that will feel intimately familiar to fans of Lennox’s decade-plus body of work.

Alongside Santos, Buoys also features collaborators in Chilean DJ/vocalist Lizz and Portuguese musician Dino D’Santiago, both artists who came to Lennox via Santos’ recent trap and reggaeton production work; the former contributes arrangements throughout the album including “Dolphin,” and both lend their vocals to “Inner Monologue.”

Buoys is the first Panda Bear release since 2018’s vinyl-only EP A Day With the Homies, and the follow-up to 2015’s kaleidoscopic full-length Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper.

“The last three records felt like a chapter to me, and this feels like the beginning of something new,” says Lennox whilst surveying how Buoys relates to the estimable Panda Bear catalogue. Indeed, the forthcoming Buoys is full of fresh ideas from one of modern music’s most fascinating, innovative, and emotionally generous artists.

Buoys will be available on CD, LP, and Limited Edition LP, and digitally on February 8, 2019. The CD and Limited Edition LP along with a limited edition T-shirt are available to pre-order via the Animal Collective webstore.

Photo credit: Owen Ela