Myspace Trawl – Death By Panda

We like it immensely when stuff is made simpler for us. Not because we’re lazy sods whose biggest daily challenge is picking up the remote off the floor, but because we like having things made easier for us.

Wouldn’t it be ace if there were a device that did things when you thought it? Don’t want to get up and microwave last nights rotting curry? Then brainpower will solve that problem! Granted this would never happen and even if it did, it would probably be exploited for strange people to cook ants. But we can dream…

Amazingly there is a point to the above dream. We hate it when we have to go out and buy an album, as we have to trek through the crowds and get pushed around by old people who deserve respect for fighting in wars and other boring things.

The kids of today also demand respect. Not for any particular reason apart from the fact you’ll end up being stabbed and be left one kidney short.

Money is sometimes is an issue. We don’t always have the funds to spend on records and downloading soulless MP3s with no artwork is crap. So isn’t it great to know that Death By Panda has his entire discography on the internet, for free, complete with pretty images?

Following our recent look at promising young musicians with more talent than you could ever hope to pass off as you own, we return to America for another secretive figure in music land. The main player is Erik Luebs, who plays all the instruments in this one man solo project. Additional guitar work is featured by Nick Humphrey to add to the multiple soundscapes that he has created.

In just over two years, eight releases have been crafted and released for your listening pleasure. The best thing about them? They are all free. Only the release ‘House Made Of Glass’ has the option of being physically bought, with actual artwork you can smell and a CD you can lick.

Given the option, you can donate to his cause of recording and writing music, but when we look at it realistically it’s clear to see it’s to generate him some money for a project that is more then just a weekend hobby.

Only the other week we featured Khonnor, a man making ambient music that fizzed electronics, at times shattering the carefully crafted calmness. With Death By Panda, it’s almost like we can describe it as being drunk electronics.

The woozy effects ring in and out, flash from side to side and echo all around you. Built around ever growing drums and fragmented vocals, it wouldn’t be too much of a push to expect the formula to wear thin after a short amount of time. But as hecklerspray has found, there are over four hours of free music to listen to.

‘Celebration’ starts off with the kind of fuzzy noise you get when trying to tune your TV or the harsh sound you get when listening to a radio and going through a tunnel - we suppose it could be called ’static’. A piercing snap of chords kick in alongside the stomping of drums and this is soon met with a fast paced vocal that instantly reminded us of The Go! Team and their hit ‘Ladyflash’.

On the opposite side of things ‘LSD’ gives us the feeling that something big is about to begin. If we were allowed to make a video for this child, we’d simply have someone falling from a plane or of a building being constructed as this song adds background to the screen image. Well, we are a bit strange like that. Most people would probably want an image of old people eating shortbread, or something.

Despite starting off in 2006, the earlier music does not sound stale, even when compared to the last release in June of this year. Either he has been busy travelling through time to make sure it always sounds fresh, or he is a musician who has the rare ability to consistently make music without making a dodgy song.

People often say this sort of music has no warmth or feeling to it, thanks in no small part to the cold and ugly looking keyboard and contraptions full of switches and knobs. With Death by Panda, they couldn’t be more wrong.

All we know is that we have found someone who captures the beauty of Explosions In The Sky with the well crafted electronic beauty of Boards Of Canada and M83. As we’ve harped on, you can download all of his material for nothing at his Myspace.

We recommend you do so and pass it around.

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Death by Panda