PRESENTED BY SIR-VERE
BROUGHT TO YOU IN ASSOCIATION WITH
notourfuture.co.nz
Auckland band Bear Cat have been working hard at being the best panda
pop band in the universe. At the moment this has been pretty easy
because they are the only panda pop band in the universe. You would
think that occupying such a niche might limit the appeal of Bear Cat.
This may very well be true, but they're doing quite alright, thank you
very much. Formed by Chopper Dan and Jocee Tuck in 2006, Bear Cat have
grown from bedroom pop origins to play shows with the likes of
Chicago's acclaimed Andrew Bird, Sufjan Stevens labelmate Halfhanded
Cloud and Brooklyn dance-poppers Matt & Kim. In 2008 their track
Red Panda Blues was featured on Real Groove's Awesome Feeling II
compilation and they were one of five national finalists in the MTV
Kickstart competition.
And now, in some sort of a silly play on the idea of a
self-titled first album, they're releasing an album called Xiong Mao,
which means 'Bear Cat' in Chinese. It may also help to mention that in
the Chinese homeland of the giant panda, the word 'panda' is written by
writing the symbols for Bear and Cat alongside each other. Yeah I know,
amazing. It features eight pop songs about pandas self-produced and
recorded with friend Dave Parker in their bedrooms.
We just talked up the fact Xiong Mao is about pandas, but it's also
about literally dozens of other topics. There's songs about being the
only one of your kind in lonely Auckland City and singing the American
Tail theme song 'Somewhere Out There' from a rooftop garden ('City
Beat'), about what happens when you finally meet your celebrity
crush/penpal in person ('Set, Set, Set My Eyes On Fire'), about having
dark circles under your eyes, about being set free, about crusading
journalists on midnight dashes to the Beehive to face off with Helen
Clark in the 'Pandagate' saga of 2002 ('New Zealand Adopt This Panda').
Ohyeah, LOTS of stuff.
Xiong Mao is best listened to on headphones while floating in a pit
filled with coloured balls, like the one they used to have at Glenfield
Georgie Pie. It's sort of a concept album - though they don't think it
should be considered a novelty to have a thematically and musically
connected set of songs. Armed with big ambitions and a series of dinky
instruments, they've constructed toy orchestras around cartoonish story
telling lyrics. After two years plus of on and off recording, Xiong
Mao's final tracklist encompasses casiotones, Hammond organ, saxophone,
violins, trumpets, triangle, omnichord, typewriter, melodihorn,
harmonica, glockenspiel and more.
With such stirring ideas, melodies and instruments it's surely not too
long before there is a revolution in the music world. Quickly realising
the well of 'love songs' could be running dry, other bands will flock
to write love songs from the perspective of pandas. Pretty soon there
will be literally millions of panda pop bands, at which point Bear Cat
are planning to throw a curve ball and start firstly playing panda
metal... or maybe, with their particular craft mastered - expanding to
other topics. Oh boy, the possibilities! The band are currently
residing in a tiny flat in Auckland and working on a follow up to Xiong
Mao.
www.myspace.com/bearcatbearcat
Tune in again tomorrow!!!