In November, Gold Panda, the alias of Derwin Dicker, released The Work, a musical mélange of emotive electronics that sits somewhere between Jon Hopkins, Mount Kimbie, DJ Shadow, and Four Tet. Recorded over a six-year period, it was the British electronic artist’s fourth album as Gold Panda, following on from 2016’s Good Luck and Do Your Best. Before that, he put out Half Of Where You Live on the mighty Ghostly, and Lucky Shiner in 2010—the culmination of an adolescence defined by electronic experiments where he would chop up pop songs on his uncle’s sampler. By his late 20s, Dicker was remixing tracks for Bloc Party and Little Boots, and turning the ears of tastemakers with his original hip-hop and trance-laced compositions.

Dicker’s sample-based approaches have underpinned his impressive discography, which spans garage, post-dubstep, ambient, electronica, and even minimal techno. (In 2018, he teamed up with Simian Mobile Disco’s Jas Shaw as Selling; and as DJ Jenifa he’s even put out straight up club bangers.) The Work, which spans 11 tracks, evokes the same emotive qualities as Dicker’s early works whilst simultaneously feels more bold and playful, and his podcast—recorded last week—ploughs a similar path. Across its one-hour run-time, Dicker weaves tracks from some of his favorite artists (Burnt Friedman, Fennesz, and Anchorsong) into a mix of wistful electronica and sweet, shimmering ethereal beauty.

01. What have you been up to recently?
I have two young daughters so I’m mainly being a dad. One is starting school this year and the other will be starting nursery next month. So yeh, I’m just trying to work out how to have enough money to raise them and then enough time to work to make that money to send them to nursery to have time to have money and so on. I must use all my willpower to not spend it on expensive clothes from Antwerp.

02. What have you been listening to?
The things on the mix and some post rock and math rock. The final rock taboos. I’m really enjoying the new James Holden album and I’m really excited about the upcoming Patten AI one. I’ve just bought Notes On Listening by Suki Sou.

03. Where and when did you record this mix?
In my living room while the kids were asleep using my laptop with the files in Ableton. Most of my vinyl and CDs are in storage at the moment. Actually, I’ve sold a lot of my vinyl!

04. How did you go about choosing the tracks you’ve included?
Long time favorites and a couple by people I know like Masaaki Yoshida (a.k.a Anchorsong) and Sarathy.

05. What can the listener expect?
Music I love that they may or may not know.

06. How does it compare to what we might hear you play out?
I wouldn’t play out, but if I did I’d probably play the same old shite everyone else plays that makes for good social media fodder so promoters would book me and I could make the most amount of cash possible for playing audio files made by other people. I’d probably wear sunglasses, too. Bah, I couldn’t live with myself!

07. What’s next on your horizon?
Fuck knows. The world is fucked isn’t it? I’m just trying to enjoy today!

XLR8R Subscribers can download the podcast below. If you’re not an XLR8R subscriber, you can read more about it and subscribe here.

Tracklisting

01. The Human League “Toyota City” (Virgin)
02. Karl Biscuit “Hierophone” (Crammed Discs)
03. Sarathy Korwar “Kal Means Yesterday & Tomorrow” (Leaf)
04. Anchorsong “Windmills (Salamander Remix)” (Tru Thoughts)
05. Burnt Friedman “Sorcier” (Nonplace)
06. Dedekind Cut “American Zen 1&2” (Hospital / Ninja Tune)
07. Akira Yamaoka “A World Of Madness”(Konami)
08. Fennesz “Before I Leave” (Mego)
09. Alexander Tucker “Shirts Give Pleasure To Those Who Wear Them” (U-Sound Archive/ Thrill Jockey)
10. Pharoah Sanders “Japan” (Impulse!)
11. Benoit Widemann “Tsunami” (Ballon Noir)
12. Equiknoxx “Fly Away” feat. Gavsborg & Alozade (Swing Ting)
13. Ravi Shankar “Tala-Tabla Tarang” (Liberty)
14. Joseph Shabason “Aytche” (Western Vinyl)
16. Masakatsu Takagi “Fore” (Karaoke Kalk)
16. Pentagon “Heal” (SME)
17. Tortoise “Four-Day Interval” (Thrill Jockey/Warp)
18. Susumu Yokota “Gekkoh” (Leaf)
19. Yo La Tengo “Saturday” (Matador)