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Lucky Shiner, an album of beat-driven electronic music thatʼs easy to fall in love with, and to. In GOLD PANDA’s world, vinyl-static beats and heart-on-sleeve melancholia collide, and the results are breathtaking. Lucky Shiner was mixed by SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO’s JAMES SHAW and recorded in two sessions at a shady retreat in the English countryside—Gold Pandaʼs aunt and uncleʼs Essex home. As GP explains, “They went away over Christmas for two weeks and asked me to look after their dog. Iʼd walk Daisy in the morning and then make tunes till she pestered me to take her out again. Iʼd bounce down what Iʼd done, stick my headphones on and walk her, get ideas, and repeat the process.” Decamping to an idyllic retreat means the album bears trademarks of a pastorally hued Englishness; GPʼs two years spent studying Japanese culture, language, and history at the School of Oriental and Asian studies in Japan also find their way into the music. Opener and lead single “You” slinks along with a stuttering vocal sample and teary-eyed chord changes in tow; “Snow & Taxis” sounds like prime dancefloor fodder, but its cloudy string samples and chiming bells situate its melancholy closer to M83 than anything else; and the deconstructed hip-hop of “After We Talked” employs a minimal, lo-fi drum machine and an array of ever-so-gently bitcrushed synths. No Exports outside North America.