On first glance the pairing of Noah Lennox's Panda Bear and Chaz Bear's Toro y Moi seems a bit dissonant. While both Lennox and Chaz have one foot deeply entrenched in psychedelic ethos, the others are pretty far apart. Panda Bear's wild experimentation and looping create these intricate soundscapes that you are liable to get lost in. Toro y Moi on the other hand crafts immersive R&B vibes that will have you dancing in their warm glow. But after experiencing their show at Salt Shed, the pairing made for an incredible show that fed off each other's energy wonderfully.
Opening for the night was Baltimore's Nourished by Time. While I have seen this incredible band before in an early set at a festival, this performance was nothing short of revelatory. Nourished By Time are built for a later evening set and a dense crowd like they had at Salt Shed. Their songs need that sort of energy to feed off of as the bright R&B tracks feel like hidden gems off Dreamcast soundtracks bounce along as singer Marcus Brown serenaded the crowd. Playing tracks mostly of their fantastic Erotic Probiotic 2, Nourished by Time certainly got the packed crowd dancing to kick off the evening.
Panda Bear took the middle spot of the night and really took advantage of the warmed-up crowd. The band's backdrop was a screen playing the exact kind of crazy visuals you would want to accompany Panda Bear, which made the crowd more immersed in their sounds. And with Sinister Grift on the horizon (out February 28), this set was a wild preview into the future of Noah Lennox's output and it's damn good.
If there is something that can be said of Panda Bear and his band Animal Collective, it's that experimentation is key especially with their live performances as they delve into the unexplored. Every song feels refreshed, which is saying something considering that this outing featured lots of tracks that the audience haven't had much time to live with. Despite that it seemed like Panda Bear really embraced the more guitar-driven aspects of his songwriting and delivered some incredible performance of new singles "Ferry Lady", "Ends Meet", and "Defense". While all three did drift from their studio release, they maintained their warm rock throwback feeling in the live setting and felt all the more epic with the full live band.
The latter half of the set found itself in decidedly more familiar territory as "Slow Motion" And "Take Pills" took the crowd on back to back jam sessions. Both songs have had well over a decade to garner the following they have and the crowd seemed more than happy to lose themselves in their experimental haze. "Sequential Circuits" and "Buoys" sandwiched the newer "Praise" to finish off the set and left the crowd the right amount of dazed from the nonstop set of otherworldly sounds.
The Salt Shed was on the crazy high of Panda Bear's exuberant and jammy set when Chaz and the rest of his band took their positions at their center stage array of synths and keyboards. In no time Toro y Moi glided into their set with "Walking in the Rain", the opening track of his latest album Hole Earth. Hole Earth is one of many departures from what his fan's may consider his more signature sound. The instrumentals are still drenched the psychedelic pop and R&B aura, the vocals are entrenched in Soundcloud rapper flows. This comes after Sandhills which saw Chaz embracing alt-country. You honestly just don't know where he's going to go.
Since there are so many facets to Toro y Moi, the set list found itself jumping all over his discography. Those newer hip-hop tracks like "Madonna" (which aptly features the line "How you always switchin’ genres") nestled in between older and more glitchy tracks like "Mirage" and "So Many Details". There is a serenading quality to Chaz's vocals that permeates his work, unifying no matter how far off Toro y Moi's center they may be.
Eschewing an encore, Chaz let all 20 songs of the setlist breathe and save his most magical songs to end the night. "Ordinary Pleasure" launched it all as the Outer Peace track is an instant classic full of all the best elements of Toro y Moi. "Who Am I" and his collaboration with Flume "The Difference" followed, which only sent the crowd even further into joyous atmosphere. These final moments of the set really epitomize the Toro y Moi experience, letting go and just feeling yourself as you dance your worries away. Chaz sings "People tend to listen when they see your soul" on "Freelance", the final song of the night and that sentiment couldn't be any truer after such a fun performance.
All photos by Julian Ramirez.