Crack

Gold Panda’s flight is delayed. But he doesn’t seem that bothered.

He explains: “I’m in Gatwick Airport on my way to Germany. I just got back from America and now I’m off to visit my girlfriend in Hamburg. I’m pretty tired but I’m used to it now. I’m going to Japan next week and that’s 12 hours and it’ll totally fuck me when I get there. I wouldn’t worry about time. This flight is late. I swear every flight I get is delayed.”

Gold Panda (also known as Derwin), is a 28 year-old happy to be at an airport having broke free from the monotony of everyday life.

From personal tragedy to real success, Gold Panda’s story is a great advert for taking on a chance and backing yourself in a particular field. It’s also a great lesson that in today’s musically saturated climate that the scope for being noticed and achieving real success is great, if you have talent. This is especially true in the field of electronic music, as boundaries, limits and possibilities continue to be warped.

“I had a friend who I was making techno with and he passed away. We’d had a few goes at making some music and I hadn’t taken it that seriously, but after he died I thought I should try a bit harder and ended up moving to London. I wanted to find somewhere to work and thought about putting together a show and trying to make some tracks.

“I ended up getting work in a sex shop in Soho. I went for loads of jobs with banks like Barclays and stuff. I ended up hating it. I never wanted to do that kind of job. I was just trying to earn some money and it really wasn’t going to make me happy, so I was like “fuck this!” Then I tried to get a job in retail on the high street. I tried to get a job in this Japanese boutique as I am really influenced by Japanese culture and that didn’t happen, but next door there was a sex shop so I applied. They were the first ones to call me back and I needed the work so bad I just took it. It worked out ideally because I had to work all weekend and then I had the whole week to make tracks.”

This compromise between working on music and working for money is one any struggling musician can relate to. It’s the notion of personal sacrifice for a decent shot at doing what you love and eventually doing it for money. Gold Panda’s early releases caught the ear of Wichita Records.

“When it started I just did a couple of remixes for friends, but I did a remix for Bloc Party after Wichita had contacted me. They also asked me to bring my own stuff in when I finished the remix. When I brought it in they said they liked it and that they wanted to manage me. It kind of snowballed from there really. I released a 12” on Various Productions and that went down really well, the reviews were just ridiculous and it’s just kept going. I was just dead keen to get out of the sex shop.

Fast-forward and Gold Panda is fast becoming one of the most sought after producers, remix artists and live producers in this country. His debut album Lucky Shiner, has been brilliantly received and in a comparatively short space Derwin has moved from working in a sex shop to being able to visit the country that inspires him, using his music as a great opportunity to travel. His two live shows in Japan taking place in early October gives him a chance to showcase his work to a whole new audience.

“I started being interested in Japan around the same time I started making music. The two things just seemed to gel together in the end. I’m just quite influenced by world music in general really. That’s where I go to get my samples. If I’m in an old record shop that’s where I go first. “

Gold Panda’s music is a mirage of styles. Emotional high-end frequencies, oriental bells and techy-beats, means comparisons to Four Tet are natural, but Gold Panda’s sound is notably distinct from any luminaries. Instantly recognisable, Gold Panda’s sound is spacious, yet contains the micro-noises and small sounds that give it identity and emotion. The samples are distinctly foreign, mostly oriental.

He explains: “I think certain sounds naturally conjure emotion, but it’s all how you perceive it. Some people find certain sounds quite melancholic, other people find the same sounds quite happy. That’s what I want instrumental music to be like. So if I’m feeling depressed or happy, I’d be able to put on a track that soundtracked how I felt. I always found instrumental music to be the best for that. You can interpret it however you want and attach whatever emotion you want to it. So I think I’m trying to make music where people can do that really.

“I think Rounds by Four Tet is the album that influenced me the most. I’m very happy with the comparisons. It is annoying when people call me the new Four Tet, because clearly we are quite different.”

Gold Panda’s debut album was preceded by an EP called Before, which he is proud of, but not keen to settle on. It was in this period between EP and full album that his musical ethos became quite defined.

“In between the release of the Before EP and my debut album I stopped trying to make the tracks so varied. All of the EP is quite different, but with the album I wanted to make it like a story with a beginning, middle and end. I wanted songs where each track had an intro and an outro and probably a peak. So in many ways maybe I’ve played it a bit safe on this album, but I wanted something that was quite cohesive, followed a story and had a sound all the way through. I’ve always liked albums that do that, so there was no need to include any of the old releases on there.

“The only reason I would have been tempted to do would be for the possible sales, but then I wouldn’t have been happy with it. I don’t like people who release the same stuff all the time. It’s weird when people get hype at the start of the year, bring out this album and eight of the ten songs on it have already been released. It’s a cop out. You’ve got to be confident in what you are doing to say I did that then and now I can do this.

“I also think it’s nice when things are limited, like when you do 500 of one record and then that’s that. An album is something that will just sit there on general release for like however long. I want to release other stuff around it that only has a few hundred copies or whatever. I think it’s nice to move on and say, “that was that” instead of just trying to do the same thing. It’s about moving on.”



Tune: Same Dream China

http://www.myspace.com/goldpanda

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