music from negative PANDA

	negative PANDA
		David Ratcliffe (SANEMAN) and Keith Sandys (Mr. Teeth) write, record and perform their self styled 'space honk' music as negativePANDA. Their moody and chaotic sounds could be desribed as Post Rock, but their influences and interests are derived from a number of varied fields. Lo-Fi and processed, both organic and digital, harmonious in outcome but from contradicting origins, their soundscapes come from a deep, dark place, but can inflict a soothing sweetness. We hope to be able to give more information here of forthcoming performances soon. Album recordings to date include: tape no.1 no time to wake up put my thoughts away		Saneman
				David & Keith are also members of White Cliff Sands
				Other music from san
Here are the origins of the group as described by David Ratcliffe: 'We first met in gcse physics, bonding over a love of classic hard rock and heavy metal. After a while we decided to get together and try to start a band. Keef played guitar, and I played bass. We tried to do the whole rock thing, but it didn't really work. Then, somehow, we ended up playing chilled out mellow stuff, and it sounded pretty cool. As neither of us could actually really play our instruments, it was a long painful process trying to do anything with a solid structure. We ended up just jamming real loose epic instrumental pieces. Very minimal, just the two of us. Things moved on when we clubbed together to buy a bottom of the range four track cassette recorder. It allowed us to expand our sound dramatically as we could bring in backing sound for our guitars. Keef got a drum machine and various pedals .. we also took to recording ambient sounds and recording samples from t.v + radio. negative PANDA as we know it had arrived.'
	On Saturday 21st July 2001 negativePANDA made a special apearance in Portsmouth, England, with guests New Low and benjamin_sanguine. Attendance was by invitation only, but we hope to be able to bring you news of more performances soon.
Here are some comments from Keith about the performance: 'Well, I have to say I personnally feel our set was succesful (worked far better than I expected, to be honest!). I thought it went well although I have no idea what it sounded like!!! Ben - I'm sure I speak on behalf of myself and Dave when I say many thanks for your help along with Justin and Duncan, without whom we would've failed in our task to represent our music live. I think Richard (the host) loved the fact that Duncan's style combined with everything else added a new dimension to the sound. 'Rich thought it all worked well and the levels were fine, but the overall opinion was it could've been louder in general and my geetar was a bit quiet in the mix. He enjoyed our style and how it all pieced together with the various mix of sounds. My sister said the only thing that was a bit off putting was how things didn't seem to finish; but other people (Paul, Nigel) loved the way it all flowed into one long piece, which was our plan so that was cool.'
		Dave comments: 'After a while me and Keef had agreed on a brief outline of what to play, using a couple of tracks we'd recorded quite a while a go as a basis. We decided we'd like to do it as one long piece of music, spanning our allotted 20-30 min set. When the big day finally arrived we still had no idea on how things were going to sound.
'At roughly 3 o'clock we all convened at the venue. I'd already started drinking. We were due to play at 7:30, though the other band were due to turn up at about 6 to set up... this didn't leave us that long to come up with something. Turned out we didn't have much space either, so it was going to be a challenge. After a wee bit of organising, we ended up with: keef on acoustic guitar; ward on electric guitar; me on bass, percussion, electric guitar and vocals; whitaker on bass and electric guitar; duance on electric guitar, percussion(?) + tapes. or something like that. whitaker and duance came up with a wicked central section which would go between the 2 nP tracks. The hosts seemed a little concerned about our lack of a plan, but we assured them that we knew what we were doing. kind of. Our set up time was cut short by the other band being pricks. but hey, what can you do?
'I figured it'd be pretty quiet when we played due to the early time, but there was a reasonable size crowd building up by the time we took to the stage.. such as it was..anyway, I was, as planned, slightly tipsy by this point, so no nerves or anything. As we started off quite quietly most people were still talking but as things kicked in a bit, I think people were paying attention. It all went by very quickly, which was disappointing coz I didn't get to do my noisy guitar section, but I was most pleased when people actually clapped and cheered afterwards.
'From my point of view .. we did quite well, though I couldn't hear what anyone else was doing. Our instrument changes were flawless, and no dramatic mistakes were made. Oh, I think I came quite close to breaking the drum machine. I still think we shoulda dragged it on a bit, as I'm sure no one would've minded. From other people I've heard that the levels were a bit wonky, With keef + ward being almost inaudible at the back. The other band took the piss out of us, but i certainly wasn't bothered. So after we packed up we had lots more beer + danced to funky dance + hip hop tracks spun by the djs. yay! '

If you would like more information on negativePANDA then email them via information@sanguinearts.org.uk ["QUOTE/UNQUOTE, WITH NOTHING IN BETWEEN, I AM LEFT SPEECHLESS, CAN YOU NOT SEE?]

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