Panda Bear seems a bit of a confused lad. Not that it isn’t working for him, as he’s already gained a huge following with that other band he’s in, East Coast electronic/beatmaking giants Animal Collective. And with the advent of new technology, and one-man bands being more prevalent in today’s day and age, it perhaps isn’t that uncommon to see a guy on stage with both a guitar and a workstation thrown out in front of him. But his music is a neurotic hybrid of heaven and hell; a sprawling out somewhere between the euphoric, the shoegaze-freindly, the lovely side of life — and what could perhaps be best described as a series of rather insipid underlying pulses and bursts. On tracks like “Comfy in Nautica”,  and “Bros”, it almost sounds like he’s channeling Brian Wilson and the days of the The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, only with some clearly computer-edited blips and bleeps as opposed to that classic Stratocaster sound. Then on tracks like “I’m Not”, he’s lost in the soothing, blissful sounds of arpeggiated vocal layers and resonating chirps and bells and whistles. If most electronic music is cut with WAVE or ProTools or something else, then his seems severed into disjointed bits by the dulled blade of a hatchet. But that’s not to negate the beauty of his wandering mind and schizoid soul: just listen to any of the tracks off Young Prayer, which while perhaps minimalist and threadbare, are still no less lacking in emotion. Feel the love now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.