#hey panda

[dustedmagazine]

The High Llamas— Hey Panda (Drag City)

The soft pop smorgasbord that Irish-English band The High Llamas has offered for three decades continues to sate listeners’ hunger for engaging arrangement-forward music.  Drawing influence from Burt Bacharach, Brian Wilson, Juan Garcia Esquivel and the early European electronic composers, Sean O’Hagan and his group steered a subset of the 1990s zeitgeist toward baroque-leaning, globally flavored rock music.  A short stint playing keyboards with Stereolab cultivated an interest in analog electronics, as O’Hagan further expanded the band’s sound on classic albums Hawaii and Cold and Bouncy.  Now in his mid-60s, O’Hagan is still exploring the furthest reaches of pop music, citing J Dilla’s abstract productions and SZA’s boom bap resurgence as current influences. With so many colors on his palette, O’Hagan paints his sonic portraits with bold, bright strokes, creating a music that flourishes exponentially year over year, like a hearty clematis vine.

Hey Panda is a rich, meaty stew combining all of O’Hagan’s influences and several sides of his persona: it’s witty, wise, humorous, quirky and adventurous. Often, it’s all these things at the same time. Benjamin Garrett, a.k.a. Fryars, adds a production sensibility that emphasizes the aspects of the band that best suit each song, from the title track’s wobbly, elastic beats to the smooth, soulful groove of “Yoga Goat.” Tracks like “Fall Off the Mountain” are steeped in weirdness, especially when O’Hagan’s voice adopts autotune, vocoder, and even a chipmunk pitch. The offbeat nature of the tune is accentuated by goat bleats and sudden shifts in tone and tempo: the mellow intro belies the neo-disco tune hiding behind it.

Sometimes the fine line between classic O’Hagan and his newer influences are more subtle. Trap beats occasionally grace the lovely “Bade Amey,” while the vocal manipulations on “The Grade” lurk in the background so O’Hagan’s butter smooth serenade can take center stage. Often, his daughter Livvy provides counterpoint, or even jumps to the front to take over. She owns the dancefloor-friendly sections on “Fall Off the Mountain,” for example. Will Oldham, a magnet for all things unorthodox, has co-writing credits on two songs: “How the Best Was Won” and “Hungriest Man” come across as new jack swing played in the Star Wars cantina. Of course, they’re insanely clever tunes delivered without a hint of irony. So too is “Sister Friends,” a ballad sung by Rae Morris overtop a stumbling rhythm and a multitude of interlocking flourishes that seem to fit right into place in the mix. Hey Panda shines with an unnatural glow throughout, yet it’s these collaborative moments that burn brightest (and strangest).        

Bryon Hayes

[ffcrazy15]

Someone needs to do an analysis on the way the Kung Fu Panda movies use old-fashioned vs. modern language ("Panda we meet at last"/"Hey how's it going") and old-fashioned vs. modern settings (forbidden-city-esque palaces/modern-ish Chinese restaurant) to indicate class differences in their characters, and how those class differences create underlying tensions and misunderstandings.

[hinamie]

second years designs :D only have a few more characters left to do this has gone so quick ,,

jjk atla!au with @philosophiums

[hrokkall]

Minos and Sisyphus Prime but they're both core files from hit 2016 game Pony Island

[internet-goblin]

My favorite archetype of any media has to be "Really adorable artstyle and visuals with a story that quickly becomes incredibly dark."

I'm serious. Which of these games do you think features more dead children? (The answer might surprise you!)

Which of these shows kills more of its named characters in the first season? (The answer will probably not surprise you, but it's really damn close!)

[waterfire1848]

Hei-Ran: You were not meant to be the Avatar! That’s not my fault!

Yun: Not your fault?!

Yun: Who filled my head with dreams?!? Who drove me to train until my bones cracked?! Who denied me my destiny!?!?

[error-pleaseleaveamessage-error]

HELLOOO!!! do you have any lee!cole PLS AND TYY ><!!

I sure do, here he is! =D

This is how the Season 4: Tournament of Elements battle went right? /j

[daggerbeanart]

[incorrect-league-of-villains]

Spinner: Sako-san, I have bad news.

Sako: There is no good news or bad news, only news.

Spinner: Dabi got arrested.

Sako: …that is bad news.

[cartoontees]

guys stop being dramatic kung fu panda 4 was not that horrible 😆 in my opinion it's about on par with 3. not as good as 1 or 2 but can we really expect lightning to strike thrice?

i hate the unnecessary insertion of awkwafina into animated films as much as the next person but frankly i found her character pretty likeable; the worst thing about zhen is she's a bit of a stereotype, but she's kind of charming. i won't mind if she becomes the dragon warrior in a new trilogy, especially since she has a lot of room to grow as a character. the chameleon was no tai lung or lord shen but she was a decent villain. she had personality but i would've like if she was scarier or more of a threat.

but yeah for the love of god please bring back the furious five. i miss them :-(

negative thoughts: i'm not gonna sugarcoat it. a lot of what tai lung was saying was very He Would Not Fucking Say That. and probably worst of all this film was missing a really good moment of emotional catharsis like the previous films.

so yeah it's not terrible and it's even good at a lot of times but overall it's mediocre compared to 1 and 2 and i think that's what makes it bad. i think we're all just disappointed because we know this franchise has the potential to be much better but it's just not hitting the mark anymore. i'd rather have this kfp 4 than no kfp 4, but i can see why people are saying this film feels like an injustice to the series. all we can hope for is if there's more in the future, that the dreamworks team doesn't get stuck 'settling' with the quality of kfp 3 and 4 when we already know they're capable of an installment like kfp 2.

[fully-caulked-wagon]

Yo, which dumbass told me it was okay to make a single doodle 10 panels long just to do a shitty Godfather / that tumblr mint post reference?

[thedisablednaturalist]

There's so many raccoon Webkinz (and a red panda one!)

The signature one right now is worth $149 and the brilliant one is $139.

I have two of the rascal one (the original raccoon!) One from when I was little (it's missing it's nose) and another one I got as an adult.

Webkinz makes the absolute best raccoon plushies (they are so freaking cute and they have little hands!!!)

[sizzlingdetectivepeanut]

[piko-power]

One of the thousands of things I hope seeing in Sonic Movie 3 is maybe in the beginning, maybe after the opening title, there would be a Kung Fu Panda style scene where it's 2D animated action of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles beating up bad guys in a city, and afterwards Sonic says something like "We're Sonic Heroes" and then Tails suddenly interrupts going "NOPE. No way. We are NOT calling this team Sonic Heroes!" then with a Sonic item box hit sound effect we cut back to reality where Sonic was trying to tell these Green Hills tourists a story about how he and his brothers saved the world but Tails just jumped in about how he disliked the team name. Bonus points if Knuckles also jumped in saying that the name sounds too egotistical, which really pissed Sonic off. XD

[colorado-corvidian]

"Cottonwood Bliss," acrylic markers on canvas board, 2023.