Gold Panda - Good Luck And Do Your Best

'Good Luck And Do Your Best' was initially planned to be something else entirely. Early in 2014 the electronic artist most comfortable with the moniker Derwin Panda set out to Japan for the first of a pair of trips - the latest of many visits to a place he holds most dear. This time a photographer, Laura Lewis, accompanied him as Derwin’s plan was to collect both audio field recordings from his trip across the country as well as accompanying visuals, with Laura tasked to capture what they saw and encountered together.

“The album was recorded at home in Chelmsford, but I had that visual inspiration or documentation from Japan. So it was a look back. If you go in spring of autumn Japan has this light that we don’t get here. You know how LA has this dusk feeling? - that orange light that makes the place glow, and the neon signs? Well, Japan has this… at certain times of the year, it has this filter on stuff. So when we went the first time, there were a lot of pink and green colours. Mainly the buildings and cars and the people, and I think Laura captured those colours really well.”

Those sights and colours translated to a record that differs notably from his previous album, ‘Half Of Where You Live’. Whereas that record was occasionally taut, perhaps harder and more piecing, the 11 songs that comprise ‘Good Luck And Do Your Best’ have a distinctly warmer palate, one that echoes ‘Lucky Shiner’ a little more, albeit with a clearer range of sounds, and also, to Derwin’s mind, one where “the tracks aren’t popping out against each other. It’s a [complete] record.”

Having finished recording his album, Derwin took the songs to fellow musician and producer Luke Abbott, wherein Luke “made it sound good, he put it into his magic smelter”.

'Good Luck and Do Your Best' is Gold Panda at his most relaxed and confident. Doused in a chalky Japanese-inspired haze and underpinned with a positivity and strength of conviction founded in being created amongst familiar settings and routines, it’s a record that is explorative and expansive, yet hearteningly warm and familiar.

Whereas his second album ‘Half Of Where You Live’ was occasionally taut, perhaps harder and more piecing, the 11 songs that comprise ‘Good Luck And Do Your Best’ have a distinctly warmer palate, one that echoes ‘Lucky Shiner’ a little more, albeit with a clearer range of sounds, and also, to Derwin’s mind, one where “the tracks aren’t popping out against each other. It’s a complete record.”

Track Listing

01. Metal Bird
02. In My Car
03. Chiba Nights
04. Pink And Green
05. Song For A Dead Friend
06. I Am Real Punk
07. Autumn Fall
08. Halyards
09. Time Eater
10. Unthank
11. Your Good Times Are Just Beginning

Product Details

Artist:  Gold Panda
Label:  City Slang
Format:  Vinyl LP
Condition:  New  
Cat Number:  SLANG50099LP
Released:  27 May 2016
Genre:  Jazz