With the crowd’s welcoming applause Derwin Panda walked on stage, scarcely showing a smile from under his heather gray hoodie — his image embodied that of the exact young urban recluse that would produce the cryptic yet hopeful electronic sound that defines Gold Panda. After a few twists of the dials of his gadgets, he began to flitter his fingers over his drum machine and produce fragmented samples his song “You,” that were tied together with a slow dupstepping beat that got the crowd moving.
Panda played the role of a musical puppeteer that knew just the right strings to pull to get his audience dancing. While some electronic artists act cool onstage and showoff the ease at which they produce trance-enduing rhythms, Panda was the opposite — he constantly brought out new gadgets to add just the right chime into his electronic cocktail, seeming like a frantic concoctionist. Panda’s body convulsed to the beat as he mixed melodic chimes with floor shaking bass lines together with his own infectious energy.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su1wK7iCQfQ&w=420&h=315]
Gold Panda breaks from the electronic concert trend of having nearly seizure educing light shows by offering a calming mix of overhanging Christmas lights and a compilation of urban-nostalgic images that made the show feel like it was happening at a friend’s house party. For an ambient electronic artist working off his freshman album, Panda was able to remix enough experimentation, thunderous bass, and sharp-hitting sample cuts to get the crowd riled up enough to forget it was a Tuesday night.
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