Panda Panda
Panda Panda is an indie/noise rock quintet from Trondheim, Norway. I don’t know anything about them, but I do know that they’re on the wonderful little label Riot Factory, which is based in their hometown. There’s only about two dozen bands associated with that label, but I’ve written about a bunch of those, and I’ve really liked almost everything that I’ve heard from that label.
I got something in the mail bag a couple of weeks ago about the band’s debut EP, which just came out on April 15. Naturally, I was interested in them simply because of their label affiliation, and I loved tonight’s song right from the drop. They’ve been generating a lot of buzz in Norway, and it’s easy for me to understand why.
I’m reminded a bit of Wye Oak, and a bit of The Most Serene Republic.
“Why Are You Still Here?” by Panda Panda
Ragnhild Fangel Jamtveit (vocals/synths) reminds me a bit of Jenn Wasner out of Wye Oak in her singing style. I may not be able to pronounce her name (or any of the band member’s names for that matter), but I like what she’s doing there. During the choruses, things slow down quite a bit, and there’s some coed vocal harmonies. Throughout the song there are lots of bits where there’s a bunch of overlapping things that make it sound a bit like chaos. It’s not a mess, it’s just really busy, and there are lots of different textures. All of those things remind me a bit of the first couple of records by The Most Serene Republic, and in particular, their song The Men Who Live Upstairs.
I like everything about this song, but I especially like the really noisy bit at the end.
You can grab a download of Millions via Bandcamp here. The default currency unit is Euros, and the €5 price converts to something like $5.66 USD.
this is that song 
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