Consumer Guide Album

Gold Panda: Lucky Shiner [Ghostly International, 2010]
Pieced together by a London DJ while he dogsat for relatives in an Essex village over Christmas 2009, this begins with "You," the most fetching piece of glitch-hop I heard in 2010. Belonged on my singles list, I realized too late: after a here-and-gone intro that resembles the door-slam sound on an email program, one or two notes in three differently-voiced but similarly-paced 16-note plates advance over varied beats. If that sounds too simple, well, (a) it isn't and (b) that's the way great singles are sometimes (though you can skip the remix EP). After I got over my high I began to feel the rest of the album was a letdown, but far from it--just lesser variations on his trick of deploying short samples as beats without settling for staccato. Kind of like in rock and roll even if you'd never know it to listen to it--only to think about it. A-