Gold Panda - Good Luck and Do Your Best

Gold Panda
Good Luck and Do Your Best
2016
Spotify

What is quite fascinating about Gold Panda, and the music He creates is just how much it scoffs at current trends and ideas. However there is something so immediately familiar about his music even if you have never heard it before. His warm tones just wrap you up and make you feel safe within them. It isn't aggressive, it isn't all that edgy it is just warm and inviting. All are welcome at the dance party Gold Panda creates on Good Luck and Do Your Best, and that sense really is right there on the surface for you to access. The album was conceived on a photo trip through Japan Gold Panda took with Laura Lewis and a photography book was published under the same name. "Good Luck and Do Your Best" was a phrase the two heard while exiting a cab and it became the thrust of the entire trip. The warmth of the photos is replicated on the album with Gold Panda actually using his music to describe what they saw, but without words. "Pink and Green" is such an incredibly evocative song and the inclusion of some straight up electric guitar in it is such a great choice. There is a definite choice on this record to be less dance heavy than his previous which allows for more experimentation and soundscape creation. The pictures in your mind are much clearer, but the dance element is still there just not as in the spotlight.

"Song For a Dear Friend" and "I Am Real Punk" have a much more Asian tone using local instrumentation as a elements. They are also two of the more down tempo songs sort of allowing each movement to unfold on it's own, no pressure no stress. Good Luck and Do Your Best should wash over you but not as a crash but as a slow march forward almost like you never thought it was there in the first place. This makes for a deeper impact, Gold Panda is able to get to your heart because you let him in, some kind of magical sonic vampire that leaves you with something rather than taking it away. Good Luck and Do Your Best becomes part of your memory just like it is a part of Gold Panda and Laura Lewis'. The entire record is filled with this sense of discovery both musically and visually that is all encompassing. Much of the album is quite delicate and intricate but it does not feel like it will not stand up to some scrutiny. A great deal in photography is made of the golden hour, that special moment when the sun, the scene and everything is just perfect to capture a moment. It feels like Gold Panda did that on this record, but its a moment you can keep going back to over and over again.

8.2 out of 10