Recently I’ve been noticing the presence of a new strain of saturated, textured and lovely electronica on the scene; a sequence of increasingly sophisticated synth-laden riffs on the interplay between indie and electronic music. While this kind of borderline rock/electronic music is in no way a novel phenomenon (certainly Krautrock were arguably doing it 30 odd years ago), what I’ve been noticing recently is that there are an increasingly large number of artists who appear to be taking dance music as their platform into live instrumentation rather than vice versa.
It’s a kinda post-Boards of Canada, post-Warp in the 90s world, where the ‘folktronica’ so often attributed to Rounds-era Four Tet has morphed and developed into its own jangling, swarming brand of indie-infused instrumental electronic music. School of Seven Bells were big last year, and I reckon Deastro is going to be pretty huge this year, but there’s also a few dudes that are coming through on a housier tip that are very much worthy of your attention too. The ex-Hail Social Memory Cassette/Weird Tapes/Memory Tapes project continues to impress, Warp signing Bibio just dropped the stunning Ambivalence Avenue album, and there’s been a sequence of killer blog-friendly remixes coming out from today’s case study Gold Panda.
And I don’t really know all that much about him, truth be told. From what I can tell, he’s from London, he has a keen eye for website design, he may or may not be a member of Infinite Livez and he’s been putting out remixes that are thick and interesting and beaty and occasionally beautiful. Oh, and his Twitter bio reads: Tea drinker, Music maker, Depression sufferer, Erection getter, Self loather, Panda. Wicked.
So, fuck the further info, let the music speak for him instead. Today we have for your perusal his recent reworkings of Marina and the Diamonds, Telepathe and Zero 7, a cross-section of artists that serves as a rather tidy reference point for his music. Not that I want to boil his tracks down to quite so simple a picture, but, I dunno, just have a listen. Maybe then you’ll see what I’ve been rambling towards.
Marina and the Diamonds - Obsession (Gold Panda Remix)
Zero 7 - Everything Up (Zizou) (Gold Panda Remix)
Telepathe - Chromes On It (Gold Panda Remix)
Good, huh?
The man also has a sequence of solo releases due out over the next few months which you can track/listen to at his Myspace. I, for one, am rather excited. Methinks Gold Panda could be big.
/Luke
