Gold Panda - Good Luck and Do Your Best
Glitchy and skittering, irreverent, refreshing and fun, Gold
Panda’s new LP, Good Luck and Do Your
Best is damn near essential summer listening.
Inspired by trips to Japan with a photographer, Good Luck and Do Your Best calls to mind
the juxtaposition of body moving beats along with a pensive, introspective
quality of early Four Tet. From start to finish, the record keeps you nodding
your head along in time with the music; it keeps you nodding your head as you
get lost in thought.
Before the first track, “Metal Bird,” had even finished
during my first listen of the album, I knew I had found something special—the
way it slowly and then seamlessly blended elements together: a disembodied
vocal sample, a glistening and shimmering pluck of guitar strings, and a loping
beat that continues to build.
It’s that kind of transcendental and impressive combination
of elements and atmosphere creation that Gold Panda (his birth name is not
listed on the Internet) continues as the album progresses—the slow motion, roof
top party vibe of “In My Car,” complete with worldly instrumentation included; the
swirling, downcast piano progression and thumping beats of “Pink and Green”; and
the jazz-infused triumph of the album’s final track, “Your Good Times are Just
Beginning.”
Entirely instrumental save for the vocal sample tossed into
a few of the early tracks, in less capable hands, Good Luck would be the kind of album you just put on in the
background while you go about your business—doing dishes, folding laundry, et.
al. But in the hands (or paws, I guess) of Gold Panda, it becomes a listening
experience that doesn’t so much demand the attention of the listener—but you
can’t help but not become completely enveloped by the soundscape carved out in
these eleven tracks.
Never inaccessible and always interesting to hear, Good Luck and Do Your Best is a thought
provoking, multi-faceted, emotionally driven and immersive listening
experience.
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