Bear Bum?

And today, on Albums By Bands I'd Never Heard of That I Reviewed Because Of The Name...

MOON PANDA – SING SPACESHIP, SING (Fierce Panda) 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy addresses the question of what’s unpleasant about being drunk: “Ask a glass of water”. Similarly, listen to the second album by Danish/Californian dream pop duo Moon Panda and you might get a taste of sultry summery parties from the perspective of a melting ice lolly. Every one of these twelve tracks is sweet, sticky, and liable to evaporate before your ears. A track like 'Machina Sky' lets a breathy pop vocal lounge across a shuffling beat, whilst synth and bass sink slowly into a treacle well of reverb – there are even languorous choppy guitar chords that have wandered in from Spandau Ballet’s 'True', but stopped for a few sangrias on the way and are now a bit sleepy. Elsewhere, 'Mixed Up' is the sort of sophisticated groove-pop which lies equidistant between Sade and Brand New Heavies, but instead of swaggering through the urban night it seems content to sag contentedly in the afternoon sun – is this the start of a new flaccid jazz movement?  

Maddy Myers’s vocals are charming throughout, warm, soft and intimately aspirated as if Wendy Smith from Prefab Sprout had swapped the literate angst in chilly County Durham for lunchtime cocktails by an LA pool. The music is lush and lazy and every track, from opener 'Come Outside'’s shimmering mix of glossy keys and smiling staccato vocals – think Space meets early Moloko – is a sunshiny delight, but isn’t all wilting synths and heat-haze guitars. There are some snaky basslines scattered throughout that might have come from one of Thundercat’s slinkier outings, whilst 'CURRENT'is one of a few tracks with a hiccoughing rhythm that is clearly influenced by the intricately controlled stumbling of a J Dilla beat (or perhaps by DOMi & JD BECK’s adaptations of the style). But perhaps Sing Spaceship, Sing’s pleasures can cloy over a dozen tracks, and by penultimate number, 'Rain Mouth', you might long for something other than a woozy lope. Closing track, 'Dance', really breaks the spell, an agonisingly sluggish weeping guitar part sounding like a half-arsed take on the knowing airhead schlock of Willie J Healey, or George Harrison: The Benylin Years. This is a collection of beautifully produced songs, ripe for sampling on playlists and dipping into for loving compiled mixtapes, but maybe doesn’t have the variety to truly satisfy as an entire album. After all, man cannot live by Calippos alone.