This is a bit of a cheat. Normally New Waves @ Breaking More Waves means a new artist who is toothpaste fresh to this blog. Yet Gold Panda sneaked in early, serving up a starter in August here. So now let's break the rules and make it time for main course; something that's waywardly DIY in its approach.
Gold Panda splices up old school crackling samples and adds beats in much the same way that hip hop artists do. Yet his sound is much more reminiscent of warped techno wizard Aphex Twin - agitated dance music that people don’t really dance to. Gold Panda takes a fragment of an idea and mashes it up to create something new. His anthem, all two minutes of it, is Quitters Raga, a bizarre cartoon mix of chopped up vocals, sitar samples, vinyl crackles and disjointed beats. It’s one of those tracks that on first listen makes you feel confused and bewildered but leaves you wanting to hear it again and again. Gold Panda has also released a six track mini album entitled Before which is available as a limited edition (three hundred copies) CD exclusively through Pure Groove. Apparently he used to work for the Pure Groove gang and turned up every day at the store with fifty new tunes. We‘re not sure if this was before or after a stint in HMV where he was allegedly fired for calling his boss a cock, but certainly creating his peculiar electronic tunes suits him far more than standing behind a record store counter. Highlight on the mini album is the electric shock haphazard Wan-San Western, with its lo-fi drum and bass sound high fiving Richard D James and his Girl/Boy song at playtime. It’s definitely not, as another of his tracks is named, a bad day loop.
Gold Panda has also been responsible for a number of remixes after being picked up through Myspace by Wichita and asked to remix Bloc Party. Subsequently he’s made a buck or two by giving Little Boots, Telepathe, Simian Mobile Disco and Your Twenties his treatment. Once you’ve heard his own material, some of his remixes are so evidently his you wonder what he has left of the original. You can find Gold Panda twiddling knobs and staring at a laptop throughout October on tour with Simian Mobile Disco, with a further special release due before the end of the year. We'll be looking for more precious metal transmissions from this bear.
1 comment:
he's really good!
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