BEATS OF LOVE
106. Danger Dub by Panda Bear / Sonic Boom
I DEFINITELY regret that my dark moods and warped notions of authenticity necessitated a need to be out of it in much of my free time. It detracted attention away from my passion for loving the art of music.
There are so many records that whirl around my musical vortex that are just lacking that little something to make them truly special. I can diagnose the problem but can offer no such remedy. Fortunately, in this instance, we have Adrian Sherwood at the controls, and he can and does.
I have struggled with Animal Collective records since the mighty Sung Tongs LP. It cradled those harmonies, evocative of Brian Wilson's more troubled times, with an experimentation that sounded truly exciting. When they toured the follow-up, Feels, the harmonies began to grate. I was even resistant to the Panda Bear collaboration with Sonic Boom Reset for the same reason. Its conceptual nature and their symbiotic relationship on an equal footing definitely promised a lot, but it wound up being a little too straight-jacketed by its own idea of perfection. It was upsetting coz Danger is laden with brilliant hooky moments and really updated those 1950s samples but sounds a little artificial and saccharine.
Thankfully, Sherwood reinterprets the project and, whilst retaining the vocals, he isn't afraid to chop them up and create something looser, less straight-jacketed by concept and, on this track, especially up-beat. I'm in skank heaven coz those brilliant hooky moments are captured, but thankfully, with less coherence and fresher sounding instrumentation. It repudiates the notion that a new psychedelia has to sound futuristic. It simply doesn't, it just needs to be creatively exciting.
I also regret that such optimistic vibrancy wasn't around decades ago. Perhaps my moods wouldn't have been so dark.
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