Compared to other texture-obsessed electronic artists, Gold Panda‘s sound seems strangely organic, as if he hunts down and captures the sonic phenomena in his tracks rather than engineering them in the studio. Arrayed next to the churning drone-house of the Field, the hip-hop esotericism of Nosaj Thing, and the voraciously experimental beat-making of Flying Lotus, the London-based producer’s approach seems more naturalistic, grounded in the earth, even elegantly empirical.
He is an artist attuned to the subtle beauty of certain sounds taking shape and seizing vitality, growing from bytes of pitch, volume, and waveform data into living, breathing things. At times, you can almost sense him opening his hands and releasing these sounds into the aural ecosystem he’s cultivated. On Good Luck and Do Your Best, his first full-length since 2013’s darkly kaleidoscopic Half of Where You Live, this elemental aesthetic seems more prominent than ever. These songs contain more than organic qualities. They contain full-fledged organisms, audio-biologies that speed through life stages and gasp for air.