As co-writers, collaborators and musical partners, Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear - the co-founder of Animal Collective and solo act - and Pete Kember, aka Sonic Boom and formerly of Spacemen 3 and Spectrum, have been working together for the best part of 15 years. The fruits of their musical connection were first heard when Sonic Boom mixed and co-produced Panda Bear's 2011 solo album, Tomboy.
Their relationship has now blossomed into new record, A ? of WHEN. Themes of ecological sustainability and dystopian futures bubble under the surface of a luscious neo-psychedelic soundscape.
“From when we did Reset, our first album together, I remember talking to Noah about Jamaican music from the mid to late sixties and how they were making these awesomely positive-sounding, upbeat songs about tough times,” says Pete on the juxtaposition of light and dark within the record’s tracks.
“We clearly need to talk about and broach some of these issues but doing this in a positive way gets you further in the conversation compared to the opposite approach.”
Since they first connected, the duo have continued to spark off each other as friends and creatives. A ? of WHEN comes some four years after Reset with 10 joyful sounding tracks built on loops of harp, pedal steel and mariachi band. With both now based in Portugal, Pete and Noah spend as much time hanging out as they do making music.
“We’re constantly talking, our next project is usually culled from conversations about other things outside of music,” says Noah. “With the themes, sometimes when you’re trying to approach something serious, it’s easier to embrace it if it’s presented in a lighter way. I think humour helps a lot too, it makes it way easier to engage with something if it might be something you’ve been avoiding as it’s too heavy.”
Noah has lived in Portugal since 2004, almost as long as he lived in the US. Pete came to Portugal just over ten years ago while their initial meeting came via mutual connection Pete Kramer.
“Our mutual friend Nick was a fan of a record I did called Person Pitch as Panda Bear,” says Noah. “He played the record at a party Pete was at in New York and Nick told him how Spacemen 3 and Spectrum were in the liner notes. I had these personal thank yous - then musical influences on one side too.”
“I was blown away by that record,” says Pete. “It didn’t sound like anything else and I hadn’t heard anything that I liked so much in some time at that point.
“When we contacted each other, I told Noah how much I loved the record and thanked him for the credit and homage. I also mentioned how if Noah would be up for collaborating, then I would be super into it.”
The opportunity to work together came via Noah’s 2011 album and fourth as Panda Bear, Tomboy. The pair had initially started talking about playing a joint-show, then Noah asked Pete to mix the record.
“I thought it would be cool for Pete to get involved,” says Noah. “We got along easily from the beginning and we love a lot of the same music too. We have a shared sensibility as far as minimalism and repetition, they are sound totems that we both appreciate.”
The duo's first full-length collaboration Reset was released back in 2022 and was born out of Pete crafting loops from old rock and roll and doo-wop records.
It was an idea that had been vying for attention for some years, then when the pandemic landed, he suddenly had the time to explore it in greater depth.
“When I listened to records or songs that I loved, I’d often notice that the intro had nothing to do with the rest of the song but was somehow instantly stimulating,” Pete explains. “I wondered if the energy could be transplantable, if you could take it, and build Frankenstein-like on this part of the track. During the lockdown I’d been promoting a record, then we both found ourselves with time on our hands and started experimenting.”
Their latest collaboration, A ? of WHEN had a similar approach but also featured American ambient-folk producer and harpist Mary Lattimore. After seeing her play a show, Pete asked if she’d record some parts over the top of the loops and beats he’d been working on.
“We wanted it to feel distinct from Reset,” says Noah. “So Mary improvised all these parts and this set us off. As the harp is a kind of a misfit instrument that you don’t really hear super-often, we decided to bring in the steel drum and the pedal steel guitar too. These are instruments we both like in music but you don’t hear so much - and this became the method to make it distinct.”
The process was similar in terms of putting together the loops, then building songs on top of them. Noah’s luscious harmonies sealing their experimentally-leaning sound and partly conjuring impressions of what a 21st century Beach Boys would sound like. The pair would meet in the studio to add bass, synths and percussion before Pete mixed and arranged.
“I created the backing for Noah to work with, I came up with a lot more than we actually used as we wanted to be able to pick the juiciest elements to work with,” says Pete.
“Working with Mary Lattimore is emblematic of our process, we do things very instinctively and quickly, then figure it out in the arrangement, we like to work in this way.”
Between them, the pair pick out album finale Graveyard and second track Lucky Charm as current highlights from the record.
“These songs were really elevated by the parts Noah played in terms of the melodic instrumentation,” says Pete. “There is a steel drum part on Lucky Charm, the backing was cool but it went up several notches as soon as it had this, it’s almost like a Caribbean Christmas song.
“I recorded one of the choruses for a vocal, then Noah created the verses from repeating the same words in the chorus but differently. Sometimes the song is already there and we add melodies, then sometimes there are parts that are added as we go along and it really inspires the mood.”
Both artists have their own separate studios to work out. Noah picks out the Telepathic Instruments Orchid as one of his preferred pieces of kit he’s currently into.
“It’s really thoughtfully put together, battery-powered and has this speaker on it so you can play it anywhere, it’s just always something I’ll grab if I feel stuck or bored,” he says.
“There are definitely pieces of gear that I’ve developed a dynamic with that I really like. But I’m always on the look out for a new kind of flavour or something that might inspire me in a different way and take me to a different creative place.”
Ever since the days of Spacemen 3, and then the cosmically-inclined Spectrum, Pete has been collecting and acquiring new pieces of gear. The Univox keyboard is something he’s owned for more than 20 years, yet never used on his own music until this release.
“I was working with another band and used it in a session, it reminded me of how awesome it sounded,” he says. “It’s essentially just a keyboard but it has this really specific sound to it - I remember Noah laughing his head off at how ridiculous it can sound but it’s really inspiring. Different instruments can be inspirations in themselves and can pull your creativity out of you.”
There is also the Eventide H910 Harmoniser on Be the Bridge which was also used on Go On on Reset, acting as a sonic umbilical cord uniting the two records.
“I love how it sounds, it has this cascading ghost cloud kind of vibe that I’m just so into,” Pete says. “It sounds like a machine passing out,” adds Noah.
While Noah has been living in Portugal for more than 20 years, Pete is a relative newcomer, moving in 2016. He believes this geographical relocation has opened the doors on what has been one of the most creative periods of his life.
“I moved to Portugal after working with Noah and loving the place. I wanted to change my life and live somewhere where I felt the environmental input from nature and the beauty of the world and to live in it,” Pete says.
“Even when working with Noah on Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper [Panda Bear’s fifth album], I would sometimes do the mixing outside. I would set up in the mountains of Portugal and Spain, I like the input of the weather and the world.”
“Our studios are about as opposite as can be,” adds Noah. “He has a lot of natural light and a vibrant garden outside and a view to the mountains, mine is just in a dungeon basement, just completely black. My relationship with the place definitely feeds into what I do but it’s layered for me, it’s certainly not as simple as saying we live in a sunny place so the music is really sunny.”
While speaking, it’s obvious that the two are great friends as much as musical collaborators, making space for each other in our conversation. The pair get a great deal of joy from collaborating, something Noah feels is essential for producers and songwriters looking to learn and enhance their craft.
“My biggest tip is to try and enjoy it, if you like what you’re doing, then you learn as you go on and that’s how it was for me,” Noah says. “At the beginning, I wasn’t even thinking if it was good, I just liked making music, and this was what pushed me forward.”
Pete feels that there’s plenty of magic to be conjured within the arrangement of the song and with how collaborators learn to move around the other to come up with music that is often greater than the sum of its parts
“What I loved about Kraftwerk it that they found spaces around each other, they are dancing around each other musically,” he says. “When you have a really nice arrangement and the parts have all paid attention to each other going in, you specifically pick things to keep out of each other’s way - and this really helps with the production.”
As the album has now been released on Bandcamp(the duo have notably shunned the typical streaming model entirely) the pair are already contemplating what they can do next. Noah has now released seven solo records as Panda Bear while Pete has also been busy producing the recent WU LYF album too alongside this album.
“Someone asked me what the difference was between my friendship with Noah and my working relationship,” says Pete. “I don’t actually see any dividing line to be honest, it’s a constantly rolling vibe - we talk, listen and share music with each other, we’re only just out of the gate.
“I love the music we make together, I feel indulged by it and I hope Noah does too, it’s a nice fun process. We never went into this thinking we’d make an album, we grew stuff and liked what came out - it’s an un-pressured and joyous way to work.”
Listen to A ? of WHEN on Bandcamp
