Praised by John Kennedy (XFM) or Tim Sweeney (DFA), Lesser Panda will release their first 7″ in October. With one foot in the gloomy sounds of the 80s (influences range from Echo & The Bunnymen to New Order) and the other in the electro/disco scene, Lesser Panda delivers the perfect music for 2008! They were nice enough to make this great mix for us and answer our silly questions!

What’s goin’ on in Lesser Panda’s world right now?
Right now? Foraging for bamboo shoots, fruit, nuts and berries, trying to put on as much weight as possible so we have good fat reserves for the lean winter months.
We’ve just got back from playing at Joy Division’s documentary premiere in Manchester. We performed our own material and 3 Joy Division covers for press and friends of the band before the screening. We were shitting our pants when we were booked for this as we respect their work a lot, and only had a matter of days to put together the covers. It turned out to be a fantastic evening, meeting a lot of people, and seeing the preview of an excellent film. We are about to release our second single, a double A side ‘Ghostdance’ and ‘Carousel’ with remixes by Heartbreak, Moscow and Drums of Death on the 6th of October. This is going to coincide with gigs in the UK, Paris and Lille, which we are really looking forward to. We then venture back into the studio with our producer to start recording more material for future releases which we are getting very excited about.

What’s your Fairtilizer mix about?
Mariano has put together a summer mix to extend the sunny moods throughout September. It’s very exciting to mix tracks we love and that we might not play when we DJ.

What are you currently listening to and rating?
As always, we are listening to a wide range of music that gets eagerly distributed amongst us. Our tastes come from different backgrounds, which of course has shaped our sound. It’s also a good way of finding out about different music. At the moment Fenner and Ben are listening to Brian Eno’s album “Another Green World”, so it was the soundtrack to our journey up to Manchester last weekend.
We have also become increasingly interested in certain Krautrock bands, like Neu! and Cluster which shows distinctly in a remix we did for Mirror! Mirror!.

How do you see the music business evolving?
Record deals are no longer the only route for bands to go, which has been much publicised recently.
It seems to have gone back to a DIY kind of thing where bands are releasing on their own or with small indie labels. A bit like it was like in the late 70’s. A lot of people are self-promoting through various websites, which is a kind of cool thing and allows music to breath and be widely accessible.
The flip side is, it’s swamped, and there are so many bands and artists now that you have to really have something about you to stand out from the crowd.
It’s a lot faster paced too, record labels find it hard to keep up with the pace. By the time a label have picked up a buzz band, A&R’d the album, marketed it, put on a tour etc… the people interested originally are onto the next buzz band and the heat is lost.
Bands and acts need a lot of recorded material ready to go so they can hit the ground running or be able to get stuff down and out quickly when they do start building a bit of hype. This costs money though and that’s where, in the past record labels deep pockets have been crucial.
Perhaps blog sites will replace labels in the next 10 years?

How is the scene in London at the moment? Any night in particular you recommend?
We all live in East London, where there seems to be something new happening almost daily. Nathan Gregory Wilkins and Mickey Moonlight (who did Colette’s latest mix) are hosting an amazing monthly party on the last Saturday of every month. It’s in the basement of a Sushi Bar for 100 people and you can see neighbors like Hot Chip or Delia and Gavin playing an improvised set with Mickey and Susumo (Zongamin).

Tell us about your new video.
Yeah, the new video is great and we are really excited about it. It’s kind of dark and interesting and is very different from our last video, more mature I guess. It was directed by the brilliant Tim Main and Joe Dixon who go by the name of ‘John Major’s Daughters’ (JMD). They previously shot the video for our first single “Happy Birthday’ and we got on with them so well we asked them if they were up for making the video to our next single ‘Ghostdance”. The video also involved the help of lighting experts UVA (United Visual Artists) who have worked with the likes of Massive Attack, Battles to name a few.

Pandaphilia, what’s that?
Pandaphilia are secret warehouse parties that we put on in London. The location itself is only announced on the day. The last one was held in Fenner’s (Bass players) Flat/Warehouse, which was an awesome party. The only problem being that he had to move out shortly afterwards because the landlord got pissed off with him. Previous people to come and play are Drums of Death, Nightmoves, Mirror! Mirror!, Architeq to name a few. We are currently working on the next one at a new secret location where we are getting more bands and DJ’s to come and play, which should be happening in October fingers crossed. Keep posted on our facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lesser-Panda/8507507631

How important is the Internet for you and where do you see it going?
The Internet is very important to us. It’s a way of keeping people who are interested in us up to date with what’s going on. It is a main source of information and entertainment, especially for music and videos with all the online music stations and sites, which is great for bands and their fans. Hopefully this will continue for many years and allow more new and interesting bands to break through.

What was your best night out and what would be your dream team line up for a party?
Playing live at Calvi on the Rocks was our best night out and our dream line up. We shared the stage with LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip.

Your favorite night drink and your trick to recover the morning after?
Lager when we’re playing gigs
Vodka when the Lager gets too much.
Cider when we are at festivals.
Gin for when we’re alone sitting on the stairs,
Crazy Juice (Gin and Cider) for when everything else just isn’t enough.
And for the morning after always a Bloody Mary with loads of Black Pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and as much Tabasco as tomato.

Tracklisting:

1.Second Memoir – Temenos
2.Unchained Mischief – Ray Conniff
3.Discoteca Salvador – Henry Mariano
4.No Me K S-Tigues – Catherine
5.Make Believe Mambo – David Byrne
6.Keep It Up – Nightfall
7.I won’t let you down – Toilet Disco
8.Warping Of The Clock – A Mountain Of One
9.Love Love Love – Low Motion Disco
10.Ghostdance ( MoscoW Remix ) – Lesser Panda
11.We’re Hot Ranking – Miss P
12.Orbital Love demo – Lesser Panda
13.Prologue – Kraftwerk
14. Dolphins – Heights of Abraham

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