Panda Riot

Panda Riot will be playing Hideout this 22nd February. It will be in support for their new LP on Saint Marie Records Northern Automatic Music. It will be their release night.  This will be the first LP since She Dares All Things in 2007.  There is the work in between, Serious Radical Girls and Far And Near EP. And in between that are all the songs these shoegaze workhorses have yet to record but play a lot. This might come off as over stated but I'm a fan. When I'm putting the words Chicago and shoegaze in the same sentence its often because of them. They are the subtext. Yes that name was first weighted down with its baggage by many others previous. What I'm usually describing is what I saw live with my own eyes in my home town. This is Panda Riot. To follow them also is to have had exposure to a lot of other bands in and away from the shoegaze circle.  So with them you get to see a lot of what plays in Chicago early enough before it blows up and can sell out Metro, Riv. etc. This is because they perform a whole fucking lot, period. They have played with bands from their native Philadelphia to Brooklyn, NY. In chasing them around I discovered Warpaint, School Of Seven Bells....I've said that bit quite a few many times. I guess what I'm saying is that they provide a good  clear window into what plays currently live and what you will be seeing on as relative household names later. All this local and trans local subcultural capital you get exposure to while in a Panda Riot gig. And now they will be releasing the music that I believe they have been playing live already. A faster more assertive cardio replaces their once leisurely gait established by She Dares, songs of innocence. They are still urban faeries forever in a state of wonder. In becoming familiar with the common surroundings, a quicker pace naturally develops. So it seems to me with Northern Auto, the songs of experience.  They sound faster like Ringo Death Star. There's also one or two songs that sound .....darker like when faeries go driving to the south side looking for weed. Dark is not what they normally do and so its nice to see it come out of them. Until things are brighter, they are the band in black. I look forward to seeing them at Hideout.
Zig

http://whenthesunhitsblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/interview-panda-riot.html