Noah Lennox, drummer and vocalist for Animal Collective, recently released Buoys — a wonderfully minimalist slice of floaty pop experimentation. As his sixth release under the name Panda Bear, it’s less avant-garde than the critically beloved Person Pitch while retaining more complexity than the poppy Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper.

Buoys is an excellent collection of vaguely nautically tinged psych-pop. It’s more focused than most Animal Collective records, foregoing the overstuffed and chaotic song structures of the band’s recent output for pure Beach Boys-inspired minimalism.

The songwriting prowess and vocal talent of Panda Bear is hard to deny once the theatrics and effects are stripped away. Buoys is an album of shambolic lazy-Sunday psychedelia that would make Brian Wilson proud.

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Cole Chretien / Culture Editor