Panda Bear Techno

Panda Bear returns with another 7", this time on the mighty Kompakt records and it's a pretty wonky affair. Not really sure why it's called 'Techno' as it's actually 'Surfers Hymn', one of the new tracks from the new album 'Tomboy'. This is the original mix of the track and it's pretty wild! The arrangement and the placement of his loops makes for a very disorientating listen and there's a bunch of ghostly sounds and odd samples that are making me queasy and light headed. The percussive loop is running at a completely abstract time to the rest of the arrangement which isn't helping matters. Reckon with a few more plays this might make sense but for now it just sounds like a mental version of the much more sedate album track. The Actress mix of the same tune is lifting me out of the haze created by the A-side. That Actress kid goes to town with the Marimba loops and abstract sounds, reshaping them into something you can dance to. Some tasteful additional synths, cheap beat programming, a touch o' sub-bass and some cool vocal manipulation are the icing on the cake of this mutant techno (now I get the title) outing. Great remix!