Young Prayer

Panda Bear

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 28, 2004)
• Original Release Date: September 28, 2004
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Paw Tracks
• ASIN: B0002KVUP2
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #115,509 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

About the Artist

Instinctively nomadic and musically inquisitive, Panda Bear (Noah) has always been searching the land for inspiration and meaning. As a teenager in his hometown of Baltimore , Panda Bear created his first solo record, the long out-of-print, first (and last) album on his and Deakin’s (Joshmin) Soccer Star Records. Panda then made his way to University in Boston . Trouble and crazy things happened so he came down to New York at the turn of the millennium to congregate with his recently-convened Animal brethren (Avey Tare, Geologist, and Deakin). The Animal Collective was born again.

When not working on Animal Collective material, Panda Bear creates lots of music by himself and with Scotty Mou (DJ Casio - Queens ) in Jane. He also makes jams with the other animal bros and Rusty Santos for fashion shows as Together. Never sticking with any particular sound, Panda’s range goes from the quiet humble jams of Young Prayer to the songhouse 12"s promised on Paw-Tracks in 2005. Panda Bear currently resides in Lisbon,Portugal.

Selected Discography: Panda Bear S/T (Soccer Star Records) 1999 Avey Tare and Panda Bear Spirit They’re Gone Spirit They’ve Vanished (Animal) 2000 ­ (reissued by Fat Cat Records) 2003 Animal Collective Here Comes the Indian (Paw Tracks 2003) Animal Collective Sung Tongs (Fat Cat 2004) Panda Bear Young Prayer (Paw Tracks 2004) Jane ­- 2 self-released cds in 45 sleeve handmaders (2003) Jane 12" (Paw Tracks planned 2005) Panda Bear dances 12"s (Paw Tracks planned 2005)

Product Description

In the midst of 2002, with much of his attention focused on his work with the Brooklyn-based ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, PANDA BEAR stepped aside to a more intimate space to reflect upon the death of his father. The resulting Young Prayer, often coming much closer to classical composition than to the noise/pop experimentations of the ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, is a collection of beautifully personal and introspective songs. Young Prayer, recorded in Panda Bear's childhood home by ANIMAL COLLECTIVE member DEAKIN and further produced by the mysterious ANIMAL COLLECTIVE brothers known as COME WINTER, guarantees a listening experience as interesting as any ANIMAL COLLECTIVE release thus far. A truly soulful album, Young Prayer is both sonically gorgeous and spiritually uplifting.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Panda Bear's High Lonesome, October 3, 2004

By	B. Case (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Young Prayer" is not the recording that you might expect to hear from Panda Bear. Half of the prolific and enchanting Animal Collective, "Young Prayer" does not overwhelm the senses in the manner of the Animal Collective's "Sung Tongs" or "Spirit They're Gone Spirit". Animal Collective is the intersection of Brian Wilson's spiritual harmonies and the Stockhausen/Cage-meets-the-pop-song sonic dissonance of Can and the Velvet Underground. Found sounds, waves of distortion and compression, joyful dissonance, in-the-round singing, cut-and-paste sound collage. This is the sort of hypnotic music that your cats will hate you for.

The sounds of "Young Prayer" are unexpected even while they rest within the sonic footprint created by the Animal Collective. By unexpected I mean that "Young Prayer" is less reminiscent of the latest Animal Collective recording, "Sung Tongs," than of the reverbed high lonesome of My Morning Jacket's Jim James in "At Dawn". And high lonesome this album is; recorded in Panda Bear's childhood home, following the death of his father, this album, if nothing else, is a requiem.

"Young Prayer" is a stripped down recording, for all I know it might have been taped onto a four-track or a walkman. "Young Prayer" is the strumming of an acoustic guitar, it is the thin wail of Panda Bear, it is the rhythm of a hand-clap, it is the feeling of being alone in an empty house. "Young Prayer" is not a solo album in the sense of setting oneself apart from a previous musical endeavor (think of Lou Reed's "Transformer" following the dissolution of the Velvet Underground), it is the miles that pass from the Velvet Underground's freak-out on 'European Son' to the pleading of 'Jesus'. Or the boisterous surf-rock of the Beach Boys singing 'Surfin' Safari' in 1962 to the transcendental 'God Only Knows' in 1966. By these comparisons I mean that "Young Prayer" possesses a feeling that the Animal Collective recordings lack, and that is the feeling of loneliness and loss.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beauty, Pain, Loss...all recorded with Grace., November 29, 2004

By	Coheed Lullaby (Louisiana) - See all my reviews

We can all relate to the loss of a loved one. Some of us have lost great-grandmothers, cousins twice-removed, or other folks that we didn't know well enough to cause serious mourning. Noah Lennox (a.k.a. Panda Bear) is another story. He lost his father, and as an emotional response to this he recorded "Young Prayer".

Now, you can choose to seperate the record from its overwhelming context, but I choose not to. That's like trying to take the South out of Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury". So listening to "Young Prayer" as a man's catharsis and healing place is absolutely essential to the experience itself.

The record consists of eight tracks, all unnamed, which makes it much easier to absorb if you can sit and listen all the way through (which isn't that hard...it's under 30 minutes long, all total). The arrangements are sparse, with guitar, vocals, and selected other instruments taking up the bulk of the album. The lyrics are mostly unintelligable, but what you do feel is how much his father meant to Noah. This is a record that can be emotionally draining if you're not in the right frame of mind.

Ultimitely, however, it serves as a guidepost along the way to those in mourning. In the liner sleeve, Panda Bear dedicates it simply, beautifully; "This is for my father. Goodbye, dad. I hope you are good where you are." Thanks to Panda Bear, we're all a little better off, too.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Album Title Says It All, July 29, 2005

By	B. A Riesgraf (St. Cloud, Minnesota United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Panda Bear's Young Prayer is, to my mind, a perfect album, in that it does exactly what it sets out to do as a musical work. How can I make such an allegation? Although I can't profess to somehow know the precise effect that the artist was aiming for, I would refer skeptics to the album's title, which, in this case, serves as an excellent expression of the music's intent. Let me explain a little more clearly.

Listening to these 9 untitled tracks as one cohesive whole has an overwhelming effect on both my senses and consciousness. The music is simply so powerful and beautiful that I have felt it necessary to listen to it only under ideal circumstances, usually with headphones, so that every sonic detail can be picked up and fully appreciated. I would advise potential listeners to do the same, either waiting for or setting up situations conducive to relaxation and reflection, without interruptions. Then, open yourself up and allow this entrancing elegy to be poured into you.

Each track follows a succession that, when considered, seems to be the one necessary arrangement. For instance, although almost none of the vocals consist of understandable lyrics, one can hear Panda Bear at the end of track 1 proclaiming "...this is how I will speak to you..." and "...this is how you will know me." This acts as a perfect lead-in to the rest of the album as a whole. Most tracks are heavily-strummed, lovely, pensive wanderings, but a few stray from this prototype, most notably 5 and 7. The former is a playful, pounding chant, and the latter is a slow, mournful lament with highly-processed vocals. The emotions evoked by each of these miniatures are intense but very difficult to pinpoint. My personal listening experience tends to make me feel completely immersed in my surroundings, contemplative, melancholic and elated (often at the same time!), and extremely nostalgic. This is where the title comes in: this music is simply bursting at the seams with all the joy and the pain, all the wonder and the fear of childhood. In its unabashed youthfulness, it yearns for the soothing presence of a wise and trusted adult, but in the end, it assumes that roll as well. It is the arc of learning to accept something. I will never let this music go.