In 2025, after decades behind the drum kit and electronics in Animal Collective and his solo project as Panda Bear, Noah Lennox stepped into a new role: the frontman of a band. On his latest Panda Bear album Sinister Grift, Lennox and his co-producer, Animal Collective bandmate Josh “Deakin” Dibb, created an invitingly warm and immediate sound using the elements of a traditional rock-and-roll ensemble - guitar, bass, keys, drums, most played by Lennox himself.

To reproduce those instrumental layers live, Lennox assembled a Panda Bear touring band for the very first time - with himself on lead vocals and guitar, Tim Koh on bass, Rivka Ravede on sampler, Maria Reis on keyboards and percussion, Tomé Silva on drums, and all four on backing vocals. The result was a thrilling new chapter in the Panda Bear story - the signature psychedelic soundscapes now injected with the richness of live instrumentation and harmonies and the pure charm of five crack musicians blending and bouncing and riffing off each other on stage.

It was a moment that deserved documentation, and in the fall of 2025, following the initial leg of the Sinister Grift tour in the UK and Europe, the band gathered at the legendary Power Station recording studio in New York City to record pb band live 25 at power station, a 17-track live album that will be released on December 11 via Domino Documents.

The quintet was joined by Dibb at the helm as producer and laid down a plethora of the tracks they’d been honing on stage for the last few months. The many highlights from Sinister Grift are present - tracks like “Ferry Lady,” “Ends Meet,” “Praise,” and Just As Well” bubble and zing with flair - and so are high watermarks from across the Panda Bear catalog - stately versions of “Slow Motion,” “Alsatian Darn,” and the title track from 2011’s Tomboy; a mesmerizing “Sequential Circuits” from 2015’s Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper; a stirring rendition of “Inner Monologue” from 2019’s Buoys and a jangly, joyous take on that album’s title track; a divine “Take Pills” from 2007’s epochal Person Pitch.

Perhaps most precious of all are the unexpected rarities that the band had been incorporating into their set lists - a bewitching remix of the Notwist’s “Boneless,” released back in 2008; EP tracks “Shepard Tone” (from 2018’s A Day With the Homies) and “The Preakness” (from 2015’s Crosswords); the eminently delightful “Song For Ariel,” an early Panda Bear track dating back to 2007 (it eventually evolved into Animal Collective’s “Guys Eyes”) that the band also performed for NPR’s Tiny Desk earlier in the year.

pb band live 25 at power station is a testament to Lennox’s lifelong artistic gifts - his astonishingly elastic voice and his uncanny ear for melody - and to the new vitality and human intimacy this group of musicians infused into those melodies night after night. Listening to the way these songs that span nearly twenty years of experimentation warp and weave into each other, one can feel the dual joy of being a Panda Bear fan in the audience in 2025 - the live debut of a set of exuberant new music alongside songs they had been listening to for years and years and were now, in a way, hearing for the first time.

Tracklisting
Shepard Tone (Live at Power Station)
Song for Ariel (Live at Power Station)
Sequential Circuits (Live at Power Station)
Ferry Lady (Live at Power Station)
Anywhere But Here (Live at Power Station)
Boneless (Live at Power Station)
Tomboy (Live at Power Station)
The Preakness (Live at Power Station)
Ends Meet (Live at Power Station)
Virginia Tech (Live at Power Station)
Just As Well (Live at Power Station)
Slow Motion (Live at Power Station)
Alsatian Darn (Live at Power Station)
Inner Monologue (Live at Power Station)
Take Pills (Live at Power Station)
Praise (Live at Power Station)
Buoys (Live at Power Station)