When Californian songwriter/bassist Maddy Myers and Danish guitarist Gustav Moltke decided to collaborate, the band Moon Panda was born. The band have now released a branbd new video for “That Girl”, directed and animated Barcelona-based Andrew Khosravani and David Borrull (the latter also known as Maliboo). In a feature with It’s Nice That, Khosravani explained that:
what we really wanted to achieve with the artwork was a sense of depth, wonder and magic.
Last week, the band released their debut EP ‘Pastel Pool’, which premiered at Earmilk, who described it as “exquisite…infectious and intimate”. The band also announced they will be performing in London on February 6th at the Sebright Arms and been confirmed to play at Austin, TX’s SXSW in March 2020.
This EP has taken us nearly two years to record and release – we’ll try to be quicker on the next one! So much has changed within that time frame. We’ve moved cities, and then countries, played with so many different musicians, and really figured out who we want to be… at least for now.
Each song is atmospheric and spacey in different ways. Listening to them feels to us like swimming through pools of different pastel colors, which is where the title comes from. We want our music to be very visual and always strive to create something that could bring someone into another world – both just by listening or by watching our videos. ~ Moon Panda songwriter, Maddy Myers
See Moon Panda live in 2020:
6th February – London, @ Sebright Arms
13th-22nd March – Austin, TX @ SXSW
More on Moon Panda:
Moon Panda received an impressive response on their debut single ‘Rabbit’ which reached #1 on Hype Machine’s Most Popular chart in the summer of 2018 and was described as “languid, dreamy guitar pop with a slight baroque feel” by Clash Magazine while Indie Shuffle admired the “progression of the track and addition of sharp, catchy synths” and compared the sound of the track to that of St. Vincent and The National. The song was produced by Cameron Blackwood who is known for his work with the likes of London Grammar, Florence & The Machine, and The Horrors.
Follow-up single ‘Gun’ looked to outline the darker thoughts within “the capricious human mind”, explains Myers, with Berlin’s KALTBLUT Magazine describing it as “deliciously woozy”, and saying the track, “nestles nicely between the likes of Tame Impala and Beach House”. The single was produced by established engineer Tom Biller who has worked on records such as Warpaint’s ‘The Fool’ and Fiona Apple’s ‘Extraordinary Machine’, to Elliott Smith’s ‘From a Basement on a Hill’, and Beck’s track ‘Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime’ from the OST of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Their latest single, ‘On The Attack’, poignantly documents the more painful side of a long distance relationship and the dizzying effects it can have. The band recently revealed a mind-bending video to accompany it, with illustration from Hamburg-based animator Charlotte Spies.
The work of Portishead, Men I Trust, Mitski, Beach House, and Angel Olsen have been key to the formation of Moon Panda, as well as their early concept of sound-tracking a “big, lush forest surrounded by the cosmos, filled with giant creatures – a space jungle“. Understandably then, the visuals accompanying the music are hugely important to the band. The videos for ‘Rabbit’, ‘Gun’, and ‘On The Attack’ are all stunning in their own way, with praise crossing over to animation-lovers and cinephiles like Motionographer, Lester Banks, It’s Nice That and curators at Vimeo who highlighted ‘Rabbit’ as a Staff Pick.
Change is a part of life, and Moon Panda have had their fair share of shifts in line-up and location during their lifetime as a group. In 2019, Moltke and Myers have found themselves in Denmark, with an important addition being BMO the puppy (and now number 1 Moon Panda fan). Their debut EP “Pastel Pool” collects singles ‘Rabbit’, ‘Gun’, ‘On The Attack’ and adds the previously unheard ‘That Girl’.