Gold Panda April 1, 2011

Gold Panda's journey has been a long and intermittently strange one. Initially, the Essex, UK artist spent his day-job time behind the counters of various houses of ill repute--adult bookstores, record shops--finding that the two were equally seedy. He spent the rest of his waking hours building up a library of original, dizzyingly eclectic electronic music incorporating a disparate mix of influences and source material. The results were gleaming instrumental hip-hop tracks saturated with bright colors and sublimely chopped-up vocal samples. Thus, Gold Panda was born.