Starting the year as one of the critics’ choices on the BBC’s Sound Of 2010 poll, Gold Panda was never likely to follow his fellow picks Ellie Goulding and Hurts to the top of the charts. Instead he retreated to his Essex home to craft ‘Lucky Shiner’, an album he describes as being about “loss, relationships and hating summer”. Taking in a truly eclectic collection of sounds and influences, Gold Panda’s twin obsession with Eastern culture and hip-hop comes through from the intricate well of samples in ‘You’ to the swaggering, confident beats displayed on the truly amazing ‘Snow & Taxis’.
Recorded entirely at home, ‘Lucky Shiner’ channels bedroom obsession and crate-digging intrigue, tying them up with a genuine explosion of ideas and inventiveness that transcend recording environments. Gold Panda could have made this album in a shed or a state-of-the-art studio, but it would still sound as if it came from another planet. Having toured with the likes of HEALTH, Simian Mobile Disco and Caribou, Gold Panda’s musical output prior to ‘Lucky Shiner’ showed promise but lacked a cohesion that this full-length effort does. Taking the abrasive nature of his early EPs and adding a warmth to soften the edges, ‘Lucky Shiner’ flows effortlessly whilst never slacking in the ingenuity stakes.
Did You Know? Gold Panda was fired from his job at HMV for calling his boss a cock.
