Gold Panda’s first album in six years, The Work, is another immersive slice of low-key electronica that sees the English producer, born Derwin Dicker, once again exploring the more tender end of the electronic music spectrum. Dicker’s hauntological sensibilities are evident right from out of the gate, as the album’s opening track, “Swimmer,” kicks things off with a warped piano and the dusty analog crackle of a vinyl record.
The DJ Shadow-esque “The Dream” features a mellow trip-hop groove and busy, pitch-shifted samples, its whimsical plunderphonics and intimate lo-fi daze infused with oriental instrumentation. Unlike 2013’s clubbier Half of Where You Live, Gold Panda’s work since then has traded in the “beats to study to” subgenre, a sound whose online presence has, coincidentally, also been marked by a Japanese influence, specifically through numerous YouTube playlists featuring anime characters and vaporwave aesthetics.
Dicker, though, isn’t only interested in delivering downtempo warm-and-fuzzies throughout The Work. “I’ve Felt Better (Than I Do Now),” for one, is a high-energy EDM tune, overflowing with garbled, high-pitched vocals. A midpoint gearshift carries the track into a dreamy interlude, complete with a Japanese koto and wind chimes, before moving back into a retro dance-floor rhythm. By contrast, the glitchy “Plastic Future” evokes an icier, more sinister vibe, its slightly off-beat string plucks accentuating the song’s uncanny feel.
Dicker also occasionally reaches beyond the realm of electronic sampledelia for inspiration, as on “Chrome,” whose haunting sitar recalls the angular beauty of Polvo’s “Tragic Carpet Ride.” But it’s the The Work’s more hushed moments that truly linger. The clipped flute motif of the dreamily melancholic “New Days” straddles the line between eerie and beautiful, while the chirps and bells of “Joni’s Room” wouldn’t sound out of place on a Four Tet release, their nervous energy complementing the track’s calm ambient backdrop.
The Work finds Dicker in a seemingly more content but also more introspective place than ever, and his careful ventures into different sounds and styles prove that he isn’t starved for inspiration. It’s a shame that his first album in over half a decade doesn’t push his musical ideas a little further, and in some moments, The Work feels almost like an addendum to 2016’s Good Luck and Do Your Best, but the results are still undeniably affecting.
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