Gold Panda

Gold Panda’s real name is supposedly Derwin Panda and while this sounds doubtful it does not distract attention from his excellent debut album ‘Lucky Shiner’. Released on the ever more exciting Ghostly International label, home of other electronic geniuses such as Mux Mool, this record is a reflective and complex meditation on relationships, judging by song titles such as ‘I’m With You But I’m Lonely’ and ‘After we talked’. This may be totally off the mark but there is something very homely about the scattergun production on tunes like the evocative ‘Snow & Taxi’s’.

Since the release of earlier EP’s ‘Miyamae’ and ‘Before’ there has been much hype about this secretive producer and with this debut he has lived up to it in a careful, lurching manner. On first listen the plink plonk aesthetics and blurry glitches can come off as an experiment in finding melody out of messiness. However, further exploration of this record reward the listeners patience with tunes chock full of fantastically intricate arrangements with beautifully moody results. Some tracks contain jilted house beats like ‘Marriage’ while others recall earlier work ‘Quilter’s Raga’ on ‘India Lately’ with its stretchy sitar samples.

Overall this is an album to get lost in on a cold winters night by the fire and sits fidgeting beside recent electronic albums such a Luke Abbott’s ‘Holkham Drones’ and the aforementioned ‘Skulltaste’ by Mux Mool. It is refreshing to see electronica emerge from the often indecipherable depths of IDM and Warp records to find new ways with a laptop and some skippy beats. Moulded out of a fans love of differing sounds ‘Lucky Shiner’ doesn’t ask you to like it but after a while you may love it.