True school trio Giant Panda is preparing to release its second album, Electric Laser, via Tres Records on May 20.
The music, in keeping with the times, is slightly different from the sun-dappled West Coast beats of the group’s 2005 debut, Fly School Reunion. Like everybody else, they’ve gone slightly electro, using lots of synths and mid-80s rhythms to spiff things up. Thankfully, though, they don’t come off as post-millennial hip-house, to borrow a phrase from a writer satirizing the 80s babies generation’s increasingly ridiculous diet for electro/new rave sounds.
“The production, foremost, is in many ways its predecessor, and yet it isn’t,” reads the press bio for Electric Laser. “Rather, thick, electro-fused samples are laced deep in the cuts of this record providing a much more futuristic but very present musical landscape. … Overall Electric Laser is a step forward for Giant Panda, but still honors its true school mentality for its original fans.”
Wow…I couldn’t have described it better myself! If that sounds appealing to you, then check out the track listing below.
- 1. “Laser Beam (Scotty’s Theme)”
- 2. “Justin Case”
- 3. “Ready to Fly”
- 4. “Speakers Pop”
- 5. “AIM”
- 6. “Laser Ray”
- 7. “Precise Calculator”
- 8. “Same Old $#!+”
- 9. “CinemaX”
- 10. “Pops”
- 11. “Let it Go”
- 12. “Do the Robot in Cyberspace”
- 13. “Speakers Funk”
Photo by Eric Coleman.
