Panda Bear’s Noah Lennox discusses Grammy, Daft Punk and new album

TORONTO – Noah Lennox’s show-stealing collaboration with Daft Punk on the melancholy “Doin’ It Right” won him more than a Grammy.

It also gave the man known as Panda Bear validation — affirmation that he apparently still needed even with scores of sterling reviews to his name since debuting as a solo artist in 2004, or as a member of oblique noise-makers Animal Collective.

“More than anything, I felt like it reinforced the idea that the stuff I was making could work and could have some power to it,” Lennox said in a telephone interview from New York.

“More than anything, it gave me confidence that it resonated with those guys. It was a proof of concept.”

Emboldened, Lennox has just released his grimiest and grooviest record yet in “Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper.”

It’s generally agreed that Lennox’s masterpiece was 2007’s “Person Pitch,” a record built on his celestial vocal harmonies and a dense bedrock of found sounds. With 2011’s “Tomboy,” he defiantly pared back and submitted to more traditional song structures.

The new record refines that approach, combining the hardest-hitting rhythms of Lennox’s solo career with challenging degrees of discord.

Even when he wrote a more-or-less straightforward pop song — infectious lead single “Mr. Noah” — he felt compelled to add some obscuring filters.

“I feel like more songs started in that zone, more like forceful and aggressive, and in the studio got toned down a bit — or washed out, or blurred,” he said.

“I still feel like a lot of these songs are more kind of full-on than other stuff that I’ve ever done. And that was an intention, for sure.”

Once again, his lyrics are more emotionally evocative than literally meaningful, but several music critics — notably in a thoughtful Pitchfork review — have sniffed out a narrative.

A father of two in his adopted hometown of Lisbon, Lennox is presumed to be writing about the weight of responsibility that comes with being a provider.

While he says no interpretation is wrong, he sounds a bit disappointed at that review.

“I really didn’t want to do something where I felt like I was writing a diary or a journal or telling stories about my life,” said Lennox, 36. “It was a considerable effort to not feel like I was talking about myself.

“Having said that, it doesn’t bug me. I’m sure if you’re making something, you can’t help but present these breadcrumbs or echoes of your character and your experience.

“So the fact that somebody might read that into the words or sounds on the album doesn’t strike me as incorrect, but I couldn’t say that was the intention.”

For what it’s worth, Lennox’s kids — a daughter aged 9 and a four-year-old son — are not interested in providing feedback on his music.

“The little guy seems more receptive to different types of sounds. My eldest doesn’t seem super interested, despite my efforts. But I like the reaction of children. It’s a very sort of pure, unfiltered feeling or response that they’ll have,” he said.

“Either they like it or they don’t. There isn’t a whole lot of mental clutter, or external forces that are guiding their opinion.

“I’m always interested in how it resonates with kids.”

Regarding that Grammy, Lennox received it when Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories” surprisingly took album of the year at last year’s ceremony.

Initially, he planned to keep the statuette in the family.

“I wanted to give it to my mom, because there aren’t many things that really seem to matter — things in her world that are signifiers of some level of success,” he explained.

“I really wanted to give her that, it was something she could understand, something palpable.

“But she didn’t want it. So I think it’s on a shelf somewhere in my place.”

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