Away from the dancefloor, Gold Panda keeps the beats flowing.
It’s that problem that eventually most DJs and producers encounter: do I continue trying to lock down club music when I don’t really go to clubs anymore?
For Derwin Dicker, AKA Gold Panda, the six years since the release of 2016’s Good Luck And Do Your Best have been a personal journey of growth which he’s disarmingly honest about.
And as The Work was being created, he also had to face another truth, admitting as much to himself as anyone else that, ‘I think that’s why I find making club music hard – I don’t spend enough time in them’.
Given that nearly all of The Work’s tracks are bassless and vocal free, it’s not hard to plot how a lack of on-the-decks exposure might’ve shaped them, but however the outcome everything still revolves around a central philosophy: ‘I’m led by the samples – and then go from there.’
The title’s reference is also unusually significant in a genre that can have an abstract relationship with real life, specifically embracing the idea of personal care and time invested in the self.
For Dicker, this maintenance came after the experiences of becoming a father and moving to Japan but just importantly, involved confronting habits which were derailing his happiness with both.
Taking into account this mass of conflicting feelings, it might reasonably be expected to discover work that’s either sharpened or heavy with a sense of unhappiness, but instead the signature moods are of light and harmony.
At just over 90 seconds, the opener Swimmer barely has enough time to leave an impression, but its bubbling melodies effectively tee up its successor The Dream, a confection of bass and bleeps spliced with analog samples and a natural glow, echoing the work of the much-missed composer Susumu Yokota.
Voiceless? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any present. One of the album’s most ambitious tracks, The Corner, features a cut-up line snatched from Dean Friedman’s 1978 smash Lydia, backed with some gently rolling pads and a basic snare loop, the final product a lot more effective than this reads.
This spongy, sometimes abstract construct has been the territory of Kieran Hebditch and some of the Brainfeeder alumni for years, but Dicker hardly needs to show his ID for entry and works up an appreciable sweat on I’ve Felt Better (Than I Do Now), an Orientally tinged banger that’s made to be heard in all the right prefectures.
By contrast, the gently flowering patterns of closer Joni’s Room offer a dose of serenity and The Want’s odd time signatures and jazzy peals give out sweetness and either a handsome sunset or sunup vibes.
As a veteran can afford to risk, there are appreciable swings from atmosphere to atmosphere. Plastic Future is beetling, introverted lo-fi techno that feels hard to reach, but then appreciable peaks do appear and the clearest skies emerge via Arima, a chilly sounding stub of heavenly ambience that wouldn’t be out of place in someone’s dream.
So, what do you do when the noise levels are too much? Do you imagine what things are like in a sweaty basement, or choose another route? On The Work, Derwin Dicker has refused to do either, in the process making a record of finesse and invention.
Once again it shows that being yourself is the original therapy, and best.
