It was a running joke between the years of 1974 and 2008 that Panda Kopanda were more likely to be voted ’World’s Sexiest Grapefruit’ than to actually release an album. But then, BAM! We hit you when you least expected it, with This Hope Will Kill Us being released in January 2008.

That was album number 1, and butter my arse, we’ve only gone and started recording again for album number 2!

So, how does it take a band 34 years to do their first album, and only a further 10 months to be well on the way to the notoriously difficult album number deux? Well, just get everybody writing songs and get everybody writing lyrics and take your finger out of your hairy hole and get cracking! And that’s what we did.

The first wave (Tropical Storm Andrew) has been completed. That means guitars, bass and drums for 9 songs plus some other nonsense. The second wave is currently underway (Tropical Storm Barbara), that being all the parts to several other songs that we aren’t using the traditional four-piece band for. Then we will begin recording vocals (Tropical Storms Charlie through to Yasmine) and finally mix the fucker (Tropical storm Zzzzz……Zanzibar).

We were determined to ensure this album sounds different to our début, so we packed up our studio and moved about forty metres north of where we recorded the last album. There was a drum kit in a living room, the bass amp in a hallway, one guitar amp in a bedroom and the other in a bathroom. And it was reassuring to know that even in the comparative isolation of the countryside we can still draw complaints from neighbours for our “electronic noise”.

There was only one bathroom in the house by the way, so any necessary ‘toilet business’ was heard in all its glory, with both an SM57 and a 58.

Much of our recording process was filmed for a possible alb-umentary which may raise its head some day, with the working title “Some Kind of Lobster”. As usual, however, the best moments (e.g. Jonny farting in a fridge) were rarely captured.

So, without Freddy Adu, I present to you the list of tracks that we’re recording. Some you may know, some you may not:

Tallest Trees
You Have The Right To Be Angry
Don’t Say It Out Loud
Blindness
A Stone In My Pocket
Slidy Man
Bassy Monger
Vienna
Phonemobilephone
Futurehump/Sexysnaffle
Here Comes the Hotstepper
Twin Vox
Stuff ‘n’ Shit
Ol’ Dusty Ballbag
This Is A Song
Bung Chikker
Richard Hammond

(As you can probably guess, things are slightly less tied down than usual for this session)

We’re excited by all this. We’ve moved away from our early Daniel Bedingfield-inspired days and into a more mature Natasha Bedingfield-esque sound. And there may be a surprise or two in store. Although we might lose our nerve and not do what we’re intending to do.

There is NO deadline for this, but DO expect a track to surface reasonably soon. There will then be a longer wait for the rest of the songs. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SIT ON THIS ALBUM UNTIL ST. SWITHUN’S DAY NEXT YEAR.


And finally:
We are playing a cover of Dead End Street as part of a gig on Friday 6th of November that will be streamed live somewhere around here at 7pm.
John made this video for Hypnogog.
We are headlining Two Step @ The Spring & Airbrake on Thursday 19th of November.
And the Lightbody likes us.


Right, I’m off to type “the“ into Spotify search and put it on shuffle… The Buggles, The Proclaimers, The Corrs, whatever.

-Davey