Panda Su - I Begin (Peter Panda)

Having grown up in the Scottish Highlands, the Folk scene of the rugged north has clearly influenced her melancholy acoustic attitude. Her voice, conventional at first, later reveals a personal tone crucial to any serious minded poet. She relays dreamy and nostalgic tales of lazy days spent deep in thought: "I am younger than I was then". Unlike a lot of solo artists of a similar nature, she also provides the words with the respect they deserve (I have a particular hatred for singers who force in "woooaaahs", "ooohhs" and other ad-lib filler clogging up the mix with self love.)

The producer, Robin Sutherland has taken special care to allow Panda Su’s guitar to shape to the song structure instead of dominating it. It leaves space for a desk-drawer collection of incidental sounds (a glockenspiel, feedback drenched waves, scratching percussion) to quietly gleam away in the background. No single element takes precedence over another and as a result, each of the four songs on I Begin feels complete, full of life and pleasantly tuneful.

‘The Bee’, along with its theme of innocence lost, samples as its opening rhythm a clock ticking and being wound back up. Gazing inwards, the EP’s title track contains a haunting guitar riff dripping like summer rain. Panda Su is Twee with backbone; wisely produced and satisfying Folk-pop perfection.