PANDA BEAR - SONIC BOOM - A ? Of When

Since their first collaboration on the album "Tomboy", Peter Kember (Spacemen 3, Sonic Boom) has never stopped sharing ideas and suggestions with Noah Lennox (Panda Bear, Animal Collective).
It's only with "Reset", however, that the artistic partnership between these two architects of modern psychedelia, longtime devotees of the musical heritage of the 60s and 70s, truly solidified.
Their new album, credited to Panda Bear & Sonic Boom and titled "A ? Of When", doesn't follow the logic of repetita iuvant: the two musicians still indulge in the past, but through a project that mirrors its predecessor.

If the distinctive traits remain partly similar to those patented on "Reset" – samples, loops, doo-wop harmonies and primal rock'n'roll textures – the approach here is broader, the mood more relaxed, and the attention to detail borders on perfection. Through meticulous instrumental scripting, the duo entrusts the incipit of each of the ten tracks to an unusual instrument, over which fine vocal interweavings, vintage synthesizers and hypnotically alluring harmonies settle.
The nods to the Beatles in "Never Givin' In" and to the Beach Boys in "Lucky Charm" are the first totems placed at the head of these sonic excursions: the opening track is entrusted to the languid phrasing and refined harp notes of Mary Lattimore; the second unfolds over a dialogue between voices and steel drum that mirror each other as in a hall of mirrors.

What makes the record flow more smoothly and caressingly is the choice to set aside systematic sampling in favor of an even more hands-played creative synergy. From this freedom spring the dancing shapes of a gem like "Revive Him", a track that, amid space-rock reverb and country–psych lightness à la Hotlegs, sounds as playful as it is dark, perfect as a TV series theme. What keeps the attention locked in is the quality of the songwriting and an adventurous spirit that pushes the duo toward fresh solutions, like the spirited power-pop of the title track or the crooked soul/R&B of "Be The Bridge".
Calling "A ? Of When" a pop record is, in truth, a mere semantic shortcut. The complexity of the arrangements raises the album's ecstatic quotient, evoking the Beach Boys of "Pet Sounds" on the gorgeous "Like A Moth To A Flame", flaunting esoteric mysticism on the minimal psychedelic ballad "Something Like Dreaming", or recalling the cultural revolution of Swinging London in the exuberant twist of "Graveyard".

This retro temporal dimension is skillfully tempered by sonic drones that bring the listener back to the present: the roar of planes and industrial machinery in "Graveyard", the sound of a video game cut through by a siren in the title track, Christmas carols in "Lucky Charm", the chimes of a clock in "Be The Bridge", right down to the din of engines and thunder. In this interplay of references, "A ? Of When" opens up a bold, reflective and elegantly ambiguous space-time rift: a sonic refuge where past, present and future become one.

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25/10/2026