Fierce Panda going back to its roots

by Dave on Mon, 2010/02/01 - 1:59am Post to Twitter

The Heartbreaks

Now this we like the sound of.  To celebrate turning 16, Fierce Panda records are releasing a 6 track compilation EP featuring the kind of brand new bands we should all be getting excited about.  This is what they did better than anyone else back in 1994, and they’ve decided it’s high time they started doing it again.

Full details from their press release after the break…THE 6-TRACKER IS BACKER!!

**fierce panda records turns (bitter)sweet sixteen!**
**and goes back to its six-track EP roots to celebrate!!**
**and there’s going to be a party!!!**
**and everything!!!!**

A fierce panda presentation

The Artists: VARIOUS
The Release: THE ‘ZIP IT UP’ EP
The Formats: SIX(ISH)-TRACK COMPILATION EP ON DOWNLOAD & CD
The Tracklisting:
1.BRILLIANT MIND ‘Leave Your Friends Behind’
2.THE CROOKES ‘Yes, Yes, We’re Magicians’
3.THE HEARTBREAKS ‘Jealous, Don’t You Know’ (demo version)
4.HOODLUMS ‘Not A Love Song’
5.IDEALS ‘These Seasons’ (demo version)
6.THE MOLOTOVS ‘One Up On Me’
7.SKETCHES ‘This Sir Is War’
The Release Date: FEBRUARY 22ND 2010
The Catalogue Number: NING 229
The Launch Party: WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 24TH @ LONDON 229
(THE MOLOTOVS + HOODLUMS + CROOKES + THE HEARTBREAKS + BRILLIANT MIND)

The Concept: on February 24th 1994 fierce panda launched itself upon a
fearsomely unsuspecting public with its first ever release, the
‘Shagging In The Streets’ EP, which featured six New Wave Of New
Wave-ish bands (see These Animal Men, S*M*A*S*H, et al) sprawled
across a pair of 7” singles. This inadvertently set the panda agenda
for years to come as the drunkenly-titled six track likes of ‘Return
To Splendour’, ‘Mortal Wombat’, ‘Screecher Comforts’ and – of bloomin’
course - ‘Otter Than July’ defied the laws of language whilst
showcasing dozens of eager new ‘turns’.

But people change. They always do. A decade down the line the panda
grew up and starting focussing on proper albums by proper bands like
Art Brut, The Raveonettes, Hatcham Social, The Walkmen and Goldheart
Assembly. And ‘indie’, in its most commercial sense, jolly well went
overground. In a world where Pete Doherty was front page news and
Arctic Monkeys were bigger than the arctic the kids had no need for
the panda’s six track peculiarities and so the ‘On The Buzzes’ EP,
which featured Razorlight, The Rakes and The Rocks, quietly put the
format to bed in 2004.

Until now.

And by ‘now’ we mean February 22nd 2010 when, very nearly sixteen
years to the day since ‘Shagging In The Streets’ hit the streets,
fierce panda will be returning to the classic six-track compilation EP
format to celebrate their sixteenth birthday. In the true spirit of
these malfunctioning retail times there will be no double 7” vinyl
release, just a limited CD run and a download release. And in the true
spirit of the musical era, with its XXXX-Factor factories and
pop-obsessed airwaves, fierce panda has been lurking underground and
putting two and two and three together and coming up with the ‘Zip It
Up’ EP, featuring six(ish) brrrrrrand new bands from the
post-post-post Libertines generation with a penchant for the more
intellectual things in life.

Number fetishists amongst you may care to note that the ‘Zip It Up’ EP
features seven, not six bands. We got, uh, over-excited. You may also
care to observe that the catalogue number of the ‘Zip It Up’ EP is
NING 229. The launch party is taking place at the 229 in Great
Portland Street. And the CD version will be limited to 229 numbered
 copies.

As ever with these fierce panda EPs there is a thread running through
the bands. Or in this case, threads. There’s a tidy haircut here, a
nicely buttoned down shirt there, a smartly-rolled-up Levi trouser leg
in between. Then there are the sparky, chirpy influences – a flutter
of Housemartins, a flick of Haircut 100, a splash of The Smiths, a
dash of Orange Juice.

Remedial indierock this is not: there is passion, ambition, a desire
to strive for more than three grubby chords and five minutes in the
limelight from a new generation of romantics who, after years of
corporate gluttony and indie greed, are just Getting On With It. In a
very sartorial sense several of these people would have made the front
cover of Smash Hits in 1984. And yet in another musical sense these
are the very bands who messing with the modern wires, putting out the
post-indie boom fires and quite possibly raging against Florence & The
Machine. Rip it up and start again…

http://www.fiercepanda.co.uk