The final act confirmed for the MPT show on Sunday 29th November at the Westport Bar in Dundee will be the wonderful Panda Su. I’ve seen her perform twice this year in Dundee and Edinburgh and a fortnight ago she held the launch for her debut LP ‘Sticks and Bricks’.

The EP was somewhat delayed but was finally posted out last week. What’s surprised me about it is that live her sound is quite stripped back based principally on her voice and acoustic guitar. The record though is far more layered. There’s an electronica undertow to opener ‘Eric Is Dead’ with its samples, whilst ‘Pot Kettle Black’ features keyboards, bass and drums.

The songs are all familiar from the live shows (a good sign in itself) but one thing I hadn’t noticed was that the opening to ‘My Sorry Little Heart’ is very reminiscent of Kristin Hersh even if the chorus takes it off in another direction entirely.

As something of a novelty for this day and age, the EP has been released on that quaint format, the CD. I think it’s actually my first CD single of the year but the format allows Su to pull off that old CD trick – the hidden track. (How many times have you left a CD running to be scared witless when the hidden track finally kicks in) Anyhow after 6 minutes of silence a rather funky banjo led reprise of ‘Eric Is Dead’ finally starts and what it does is illustrate rather niftily the range of Su’s talent.

Highly recommended.

Here’s a live, make-up-less performance of ‘Eric Is Dead’ from Homegame this year which is akin to the ‘hidden track’ version on the EP.

Footnote

The full listing for the MPT show is:

Saint Jude’s Infirmary
Kid Canaveral
Panda Su
Hookers for Jesus

It’s fair to say I’d pay to see that show and I’m rather excited by it.