Gold Panda - You
Gold Panda - Rush Job
These two are from Gold Panda's debut album, "Lucky Shiner," which is now almost three years old. But I wanted to write about 'You' especially because I have come back to it so many times. There is something siren-ish about that song. It's catchy, but that's not all there is--plenty of songs are catchy. What's weird and cool and maybe illusory or maybe essential about Gold Panda's music is that it feels very rhythmically complete (to use a poetry word--it's like it's acatalectic). 'You' makes sense on a level that I might not be 100% aware of consciously or explicitly, and I enjoy that. 'Rush Job' too, is a wonder; it's controlled, it unfolds in strange ways, it plays like a movie. Sort of unbelievable that this was relegated to the status of 'bonus track' on the album, but I guess that speaks more to the quality of the main tracks on Lucky Shiner. GP just released a new EP, Trust, the other day, and it's good, but I'm very much looking forward to the full-on follow-up to his first album.[BUY Lucky Shiner]