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Popped! Panda Bear

I spent an enjoyable morning earlier this week talking on the phone to Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear, the Animal Collective artiste who lives outside of Lisbon and whose new album Tomboy captures the lonesome, trippy sound of him singing in a Brian Wilson echo chamber in his own head.

I spent an enjoyable morning earlier this week talking on the phone to Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear, the Animal Collective artiste who lives outside of Lisbon and whose new album Tomboy captures the lonesome, trippy sound of him singing in a Brian Wilson echo chamber in his own head.

Things I wouldn't have guessed about Panda Bear: That he went to see more Sixers and Flyers games than rock shows in Philadelphia when he went to high school in Phoenixville, that he's a huge fan of the Brazilian race car documentary Senna and the Portuguese soccer team Benfica (whose name he borrowed for the title of the last song on Tomboy), and that if he had to choose an alternate career, the chillwave poobah and indie-pomo Person Pitch auteur whose music is kept on an endless loop by coffee shop baristas everywhere would have opted to be a sports journalist. And yes, there is a new Animal Collective follow-up to Merriweather Post Pavilion in the works.

Panda Bear plays the moved to the Liacouras Center Popped! Festival tonight, with the assistance of Spacemen 3 producer Sonic Boom. He goes on at 8:55. The full schedule is here. My interview with Lennox from Friday's Inquirer Weekend section is here. Below, he plays solo at last year's Pitchfork Music Festival.

Previously: Popped! Fest Food Bazar moves to Piazza at Schmidt's Follow In The Mix on Twitter here