Panda Transport

Press and Reviews + some links below about us(if you find a site related to us, please send it to us, we will really appreciate)

Panda in higherplainmusic.com

Panda Transport – “Monorail” Review

{ January 31, 2010 @ 4:09 pm } · { alternative, band, electro pop, indie,music, pop, review, singer songwriter }
{ Tags: Panda Transport }

Panda in higherplainmusic.com

January 28th, 2010

See, it pays to contact me with new artists that I may be interested in! Some wonderful lady contacted me and said, if you like so-and-so, you might like this little duo… oh yes I did! Welcome to Panda Transport, a French-American duo who are recently getting recognition due to one of their songs appearing on the drama of drama’s Grey’s Anatomy. A video for that is due to be made, but for now I wanted to share this video gem for the song “Painting By Numbers” and long live home made animals!!! Hopefully, if all goes to plan we’ll have an interview with them in the near future.

Simon Smith

panda transport Monorail in radio …Laney Goodman show.

January 18th, 2010

panda transport Monorail in radio …Laney Goodman show.

Women in Music with Laney Goodman | See the Current Playlist

www.womenonair.com

Playlists for the last ten years of the show. Women in Music with Laney Goodman features music by the finest female artists from around the world. This hour-long show can be heard on over 99 Public Radio Stations nationwide.

REVIEW  in WHM

PANDA TRANSPORT
pandatransport.com ? myspace.com

According to Panda Transport’s biography, they are a Frenchman (Ti) and an American woman (Kat). They play a sort of low-fi indiepop music. Their EP, Monorail was released last month.

What I immediately like about the duo is that Kat’s sweltering vocals sometime makes their music sound like a lazy evening at a jazz club. However, the upbeat music can be as fun as on “Monorail” to somewhat silly “Freakshow” (complete with doo-doo-scat).

The one non-Kat song, “Cicadas in Stereo” definitely stands out. I’m also not certain what is being sung on this line: “I want to ____ every single butterfly“? Did I just hear that right?

You can hear their entire EP streaming at their official website.

I will say this, they’re cute, and their songs reminds me of one of my favorite band the Would-Be-Goodsif they were to go jazz lounge.

Panda Transport’s Monorailis described on their website as “[t]he songs are immediate, personal & poppy while retaining the curious experimentation & playfulness so often edited out in today’s music.” For some reason in my mind the group Flunk comes up… with some Kate Havnevik and maybe some Imogen Heap mixed in to describe their music. It ranges from sweet and tender to pop and floaty to kinda dark… no joke – it has a dark edge to it as well.

monorail review Midwest Record KINDERLUST PANDA TRANSPORT/Monorail: Breezy contemporary take on sunshine pop that is a delightful dose of aural cotton candy and is just what you need in the headphones when the palette needs clearing. Nothing to sink your teeth into that won’t disappear into the ether and that’s what makes it so much fun. A proper antidote to the current times, the only gripe is that it’s only an ep. Clear the decks and let this make you smile.

monorail review Babysue Panda Transport – Monorail (CD EP, Alpinechic/Europe, Pop) We don’t cover many EPs…and we only do so when something really impresses us. As such, you can draw your own conclusions about Monorail. Panda Transport is the duo consisting of Kathy Compton and Thierry Holweck who created the band in 2006 after hooking up with one another on the internet. This is the follow-up to the duo’s well-received debut album (Plush Mechanique). The Monorail EP features six cool, dreamy, free-flowing modern pop tracks. Panda Transport songs are direct and to-the-point…and feature some wonderfully groovy, warm keyboard sounds…as well as some rather fantastic subdued vocals. The more we spin this one…the better it sounds. Cool cuts include “Monorail,” “Saint’s Revel,” and “Dark Horse.”

Published in MusicDish, Top40, Mi2N

Review by Jon Peritz oct2009

The melody in Panda Transport’s latest single “Transmission” seems to float on a viscous stew of synthesized sounds and rhythms. This bubbly binary brew is the perfect medium for the duo’s catchy melodic lines, silky, if familiar, harmonic rhythm, and airy vocal tones. The combination of real, that is, acoustic instruments and electronic sounds is seamless, and each sound supports the tune’s infrastructure as it builds, gurgling and popping like a thick lava flow growing slowly and gracefully.

“Transmission” is a morsel from this unlikely duo’s album, “Plush Mechanique,” an apt name for the soupy mix of traditional and computer music. The two artists, Kathy Compton and Thierry Holweck, met over the internet; she an American jazz and pop composer, he’s a Frenchman and master of the virtual music world. What would seem to be an odd mixture turns out to be a successful experiment in music-meshing and genre-bending. Panda Transport has already found commercial success in America with “Transmission” being featured on Grey’s Anatomy. Their new EP “Monorail” will be released this fall.

NME (UK)
August 2008

Another In-Store, this time from a French duo. Some proposed “French Electro Pop” Yeah right. So they plugged in, turned on & alakazam wonderous music!!!!!! They were so good, so sweet, so darn good! I’m still smiling…really.

The Onion (USA)
July 2007

Kathy Compton’s breathy melodies and sassy song-writing float pleasantly
over Thierry Holweck’s warm digital textures and live instrumentation. Though
it certainly isn’t bland, it sometimes brings to mind a more club-friendly take on Air.

Les InRocks (France)
February 2009

Written by Editor-IN-Chief JD Beauvallet

Recently mentioned in Trax, the show dedicated to counter-culture on ARTE, the Lyonnaise band Panda Transport, offer itself another new broadcast on TV. Their track “Transmission”, will be broadcast 5 February 2009 in the latest episode of the American Serial “Grey’s Anatomy” on USA Network ABC. 3 minutes of the finale, will now be cult surgery and romance in the country of pandas. Go and discover their delicate world spiced with an electronic touch.

TRAX (February 2007 / No 103) / National french mag

-On The Play it again Sam compilation featuring Panda Transport’s Love Will Tear US Apart

Le Peuple de l’Herbe with many friends, the second part of its compilation Dope
Beats rakes in the broad panorama of Lyon. 2 tracks also come from
Brazil- the time a parenthesis disco-punk shaken by the unstoppable low of
Smagas. Then return to the casa, closer to the slopes, where they discovered
a Agoria under perf ‘Basic channnel, remixed by DJ Chicken Flore, and an
umpteenth reprise of “love will tear us apart” by Kathy & S24 Compton, the
dissonances electronica. Stephanie Lopez

Jarrod, of I-Monster (message on myspace)
“ kat and ti – that is some serious good music you have. “

SUCREPOP (France)
July 2009
(translation)

Panda Transport is composed of Thierry Holweck, made in France, and more
known in the world of music under the name of Severin24 (known in the small indie world) and the songstress Kathy Compton, made in the USA. These two people do electro-pop made in quality. The album Plush Mechanique is out for one year now and if I didn’t speak about it until now, it’s because I didn’t know about it before. Still, these two people do really grabby stuff, and that the
“demoiselle” does also really nice solo work under her own name and that I’m
waiting for the next release.

Fictionalize.org (France)
November 2008

As If to escape deforestation, an imaginary panda became a globe trotter and
traveled the world, he would certainly travel in such good French-American company and  lighten his bearishness with  the friendly electro sound of Panda Transport which is as light as the clouds above of the Atlantic.

And if one were to consider the album as a flight plan, the first track would be placed under the sign of a female voice somewhere between lounge and trip-hop- elegant, brilliant, not far from Thievery Corporation. And on the next step, a groovier song, outlining the architecture of the floor plan of a samba step, in tune with a new continent. However, in the company of the black and white animal, we are never better than transported via Manchester. Thus, the song “Faith” midway through the album, borrows a lot from New Order, mixing guitars and kinetic synthetic attrape-coeur in the line of 80’s French pop.

Electro rock musician and producer Thierry Holweck of Lyon and American jazz pop singer Kathy Compton found a good balance. At this precise moment,
wherever one is, our eyes fill with the melancholy sound of a song calling for a
fresh start.

“The Progrés Lyon (France)
February 2008

CONCERT_ PANDA TRANSPORT

Saturday, 21H to 45, Act 2 will vibrate the accents of Panda Transport,
composed of four musicians including a surprising duo: french Thierry
Holweck alias Severin24 and pop singer of American jazz Kathy Compton. This
performance will surprise: full of sweetness, melancholia, timeless reverie. revealing the nuances of pop, rock and trip-hop. From Virginia
Kathy Compton was taught jazz at an early age. She started her
career there a decade ago and has already recorded three albums. Suzanne Vega’s road and recording took part in his latest CD and its tours. She plays
guitar, synthesizer, vocoder, percussion, sings and composes. Thierry
Holweck has meanwhile been a premier guitarist in major french rock acts  and recorded two albums. His artistic collaboration with Kathy back to 2OO6, with the creation of “Panda Transport” and recording a CD 1st between Lyon and
Charlottesville, toured Europe and the USA. They will be accompanied
Saturday by Franck Cavet, a specialist in soundtrack ambiance, and Rudy Boissy,
drummer. A concert very optimistic, dynamic and full of sensuality.

The bubble bathing review
Signal Ethik radio (FRANCE)
By Amandine
July 2008

This album is indie and original, and very accessible by it’s pop side.
It is listenable everywhere, in all circumstances, in any ambience.
Unforgettable: “Paint by Numbers” sounds like looking out of the window of a
plane in an open sky—”Back To School” is a track to wake up to or to
listen to while deciding to rest in bed- “Transmission” is for bubble
bathing, fly to the moon with “Cozy” and run away “Wanted”.
Finally, the premiere album from Panda Transport has the look of a
chameleon, a camouflage of sound.

Le Petit Bulletin (Lyon-France) on Le Peuple de L’Herbe compilation. September 2007

“Courage was needed to do an other cover of Love Will Tear Us apart from Joy Division. Severin 24 and Kathy Compton have chosen to envelop it with a piece of cotton impregnated with formol, and then to sing it with a perverse innocence, the result creating a certain idea of contemporary melancholy..”

C-Ville (Pick of the week)
July 2007

Think the Postal Service or Air and you’re on the right track: breathy
vocals floating and fluttering across glitchy electronics and techno-fuzz,
with occasional theremin and guitar blasts for good measure.

Bigstereo
September 2008

Panda Transport seems to be the perfect soundtrack for me as i’m curled up
on my couch…Their mélange of electronic and natural instrumentation help
them fit in with the likes of the Chromatics, Glass Candy, Thievery
corporation.

Rocktown (USA)
July 2008
French electro-pop transports to town
By Brooke Bates

Growing up near Dulles airport, Kathy Compton longed to be on every plane she saw. So when she became a jazz pop singer, she wanted to take her shows overseas.
She started looking in France. The search led her to a Web site for musicians, where local punk-turned-electro artist Thierry Holweck had posted some local venues.

She said thanks; he said stop by when you visit. And her “one-week trip turned into a two-year sabbatical” when Holweck asked her for help pronouncing the words for his cover of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” They ended up singing it together, and the single reached the top five on FranceInter, a French radio station, in May 2007. Then, as Panda Transport, they released their airy, synth-driven full-length “Plush Mechanique” last April.

Although the two halves of Panda Transport came from different “universes” as far as culture and genre, Holweck explains in a thick accent, they founded a friendship based on open minds.

They gave each other’s music a try, and through the shared language of melody, started to bond “sort of like a malfunctioning brother and sister unit,” Compton says from her home, now in Charlottesville. “We tend to knock heads.”

But shared tastes in Postal Service, Air, Zero 7 and Feist convinced them that Compton’s airy voice was a natural fit on top of Holweck’s bass-driven beeps and bleeps, and that there was a market for their lo-fi electro-pop.

They collaborated for those two years in France, laying a musical foundation that now spreads across the globe for most of the year.

“I listen to a band I like and send a song to Kathy,” Holweck says. “I send all kinds of music.”

Or, she adds, “He will come up with an electronic idea, a base for a song. It’s usually very sparse. He’ll find a tiny little melody in it and sometimes he’ll sing it. I’ll listen to his gibberish and try to extract lyrics from that.”

Other times she sculpts what he sends into her own song and shoots it back, rolling the idea through several “reincarnations” before it’s show-worthy.

“We don’t need to go to a recording studio,” Holweck says. The music-making process is in their hands — or at least on their laptops.

Panda Transport reconnects for a couple American tours and several European tours a year. November will be their first tour to Sweden, where their label is located.

This summer, though, they’re covering Compton’s home state. The tour includes a stop at The Artful Dodger on July 27. The free show with opener Nate Bolling starts at 8:30 p.m.

After a solo career, both are grateful to have help filling the space onstage.

“To be on the road alone, sometimes it’s not very cool,” Holweck says.

Toys, “the trademark of the band,” will also join them onstage, he says. The duo use toy instruments to supplement sound bites.

“Well,” Compton clarifies, “if you can call a stuffed bear that sings a toy instrument.”

Daily Progress (USA)
By Mary Alice Blackwell <mailto:mblackwell@dailyprogress.com>

Published: July 10, 2008

Once upon a time I was backpacking across Europe. When I landed in Paris I was hot, tired and thirsty.

Naturally, I drank the water … in a bathroom … and don’t remember too much more of the trip. Other than it was extremely hot and crowded.

In my fogged state, I couldn’t understand why people kept throwing firecrackers at my feet. Was my gigantic backpack a giveaway that I was a tourist?

Why was every museum closed? I just want to rest.

My, there was a huge military presence. Soldiers in protective vests and carrying big guns were on every corner. Tanks rolled down the Champs-Elysees.

Look! There are jets flying over the Arc de Triomphe leaving behind contrails of blue, white and red.

A very tall man bumps into me. It’s David Hasselhoff.

It could only mean one thing.

I had landed in France on Bastille Day.

Their Fourth of July comes 10 days later than ours. Thirteen, if you are Canadian. That’s when, in 1789, the storming of the Bastille marked the start of the French Revolution. Sure, there were only about seven prisoners in the famous lockup, but the symbolic coup signified that the king was no longer in charge.

Give me liberty. Give me equality. Give me fraternity.

Please, somebody give me something to drink other than tap water from a public bathroom.

I hadn’t thought too much about that day until Jane Norris started sending me these emails about Bastille Day … right here in the Charlottesville area.

Viva la celebration.

DelFosse Vineyards and Winery has a two-day event. And, there is stuff going on with the Wintergreen Summer Music Festival. I was going to tell you about them, but Jane beat me to the punch. Look on Page C4 to find out which world famous chanteuse will be singing “La Marseillaise” this weekend.

But Francophiles don’t have to go all the way to Nelson County. Zinc also has cooked up its own Bastille Weekend Celebration.

The French bistro on West Main Street is the place to go for a bite to eat, or a Zinc drink or to watch a futball game. It’s also a spot to listen to a little music. This weekend’s lineup has what you would call a French connection.

The Eames Coleman Trio kicks off the three-day Bastille celebration with a progressive jam at 11 tonight. Panda Transport takes over Saturday evening with an experimental mix of electoracoustic and bossa nova.

By the way, Thierry Holweck and Kathy Compton met in Lyon, France, and decided to become Panda two years ago. Saturday’s free show also will mark the release of their new CD, which, in itself, is another good reason to celebrate. (For those who haven’t heard this talented twosome, you might be heard half of the Panda with the Straight Punch to the Crotch. Compton is the versatile blonde who sings and plays just about every instrument for the Punch bunch.)

France’s own Holweck will return to Zinc on the BIG day to storm the stage at 6 p.m. as DJ Thierry.

One tip. If you are hot and tired and thirsty, order your drink from the bar.

Indietronica (France)

Their meeting occurred in 2004 when Kathy set out to find a booking agency in Europe for her pop and jazz music and contacted then Thierry manager Anne Clark in France. Kat had already three albums to her oeuvre with prestigious participations from musicians such as Suzanne Vega’s studio and road musicians and John D’earth (trumpeter for Miles Davis). Thierry, under the name
of Severin24, playing  electronica on European and American stages in
recent years. Before that he was the guitarist Garlic Frog Diet, the famous
Lyonnaise grunge group signed in his time on now deceased but prestigious label Fnac alongside Burning heads. In other words, these two artists are not new to the music scene.

What joined them as a first step in their rapport is more related to their common passion for travel and good wines. They share the same time in each other’s enviros and developed their respective careers. In 2006, DJ P from Peuple de
l’Herbe requested that Holweck do an interpretation of Joy Division for the compilation Dopebeat. Ti asked Kathy to sing with him on the track for help with accent and pronunciation, and the pleasure they have to share
this work gives them the desire to go further and create Panda Transport.
The song reached audiences via broadcast on France Inter and confirms the potential of the group that conducts a tour in 2007 that passes through France, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria and ends with 17 dates in the USA. To defend their
first CD coming out on Apline Chic in June 2007, available in the USA and I-tunes.

www.looseylucy.com

The music of Panda Transport is extremely unique, experimental dance pop with a taste of lounge and noise. The duo combines electronic sound with live instruments and a cerebral lyrical style. “Paint by Numbers” is an addictive, pop dance tune with pretty vocals by Kathy Compton, and “Back to School” has an interesting experimental dance beat combined with ethereal vocal harmonies. “Devil in Me” is an ultra-modern lounge song with a beat box beat, while “Transmission” will enchant you with its captivatingly beautiful melody. “Le Voile” is a jazzy love song with an alluring beat and a seductive flute solo. The intriguing, “La Fin du Prince Charles,” has a melody that is slightly reminiscent of the 80’s hit, “99 Luftballoons.” Thierry Holweck sings on “Faith,” which is perhaps the most radio-friendly track. It has an infectious hook and melody and a crazy breakdown with unconventional sounds and whistling. The largely instrumental, “Chapeau,” has an electro-funk beat juxtaposed against a Depeche Mode-influenced intermezzo. On “Cosy,” Ms. Compton raps about the story of a man who just wanted to be “cozy and luxuriously warm,” while a robot voice adds on the chorus that all he wanted was to “die laughing.” The noisy dance track, “Wanted,” which is remixed by Frank Cavet, posseses a full haunting melody and sound. The album also contains a techno remix of “Paint by Numbers” by Bart Thissen and an experimental/noise remix of “Transmission” by The Noise Affinity. Interesting sound!

Shape+colour (USA)
May 2008

Panda Transport transmission

Anything as long as it’s done earnestly, can be beautiful. Tealights and watercolours imbue Panda Transport’s self made video for “Transmission” with a quiet, simple importance that doesn’t trumpet it’s arrival.It just appears as if it’s always been there.

Earlab (Switzerland)
June 2008
By Sam

First impression. If you look for a kind of festive music or electro-clash,
Panda Transport is not for you. The CD is cool, smooth and full of small
details. I particularly love the harmonies and the melodies as the
sophisticated layout of guitars and synth each time I listen to this album
I discover new aspects of the music. The mixture of influences and style work
perfectly especially on Le Voile, where synth and computer drums are mixed
with classical guitar, recorder and Kathy’s  jazzy voice. Paint by Numbers is a
pop-disco grabby hit, and should be loved by fans of Air. Finally it’s a
collection of fresh and light poppy songs occupying a good place in my I-pod!!!

OUT OF SPACE (Swiss)
Review: Panda Transport – Plush Mechanique
(18.04.08 / Alpine Chic)

*****(ridiculous incomprehensible translation)*****

In the first moment klingts very simple: Rectilinear bass drum, snares, a
simple bass line and a little guitar. It singing. And the singing is
consistently sung not entirely clean. And yet …

Also track number two is very simple, even here the two-singing not entirely
harmonious. Rounding off the track later with cello (sample?). But still …

What through the entire album seems to draw, simplicity, always new
instruments such as cello or flute and not entirely clean intonation, both
in singing and shared with instruments. But still …

Again and again, “but …”. Because the songs have something Anziehendes
that does not simply describe it and apparently something with the above
attributes (simplicity, surprise and intonation, or lack of) has to do. The
simplicity makes the whole a bit infantile, to fit a little childish cover
of the album. The surprises come in almost all tracks in the form of a
resolution of this simplicity, for example, ausfüllenden by adding an
instrument or a consistent beat. The third attribute the lack of harmony in
the singing and sometimes even with instruments, the Merkwürdigste. Someone
with the absolute hearing could be really mad, but somehow it makes for a
special impurity.

If the usual drawers for the music should be the one with electro, trip hop,
bossa nova, post-Something or (calm) Anyway-Clash. Indeed, it is difficult
to draw comparisons with the trip hop thing probably take quite well. With
mostly quiet until rather funny lyrics ( “I asked a ladybug, why do you walk
when you could fly, my friend” – track “Paint By Numbers”).

All in all, I will from the album not quite smart. It may fascinate me at
the moment, its simple, childlike (and some French) Type I am sure in the
future in some moment just right. In some moments but certainly not. The
surprising use of a flute in the very beautiful song “Le Voile”, for
example, is a highlight on the album. Other good songs are “Cosy” with his
talk-box chorus and its glassy sounds, or “Back To School” with the (pseudo
-) cello.

And now I should pass judgement on an album abgeben, where I not only do not
know why I like it, but I’m not really sure bin times, whether I like it?
Therefore my judgement: Even listen. Friends of Air and other carefree
French music anyway. My Rating: 7 / 10 stars for all the simplicity and
surprises.

Trespass.CH (Switzerland)
July 2008
(HORRIBLE translation, I mean SHAB-BY- basically use-LESS)

So antithetical as plush and metal are the American jazz singer Kathy
Compton and her French musician Thierry Holweck. She wanted once witch or
astronaut, he is simply mad, writes the promo. The disparate duo presents
“Pluch mechanique” a debut album entitled. In a genre that is often crossed
by artificiality or even almost dominated created Panda Transport human
music and calling the hearing. Fine nuances such as the cello in “Back to
School” veredlen the rather minimal held Eletrotrakcs and form – in this
specific case – a dark contrast point to the bright voice. The jazz
influence, the singer / songwriter Compton brings, sometimes merges with a
Bossa Nova, the soft-Synthi Piepsern team. Acoustic guitars mingle tenderly
with electronic elements and the microphone Kathy makes their career
aspirations witch still true, if they like Erykah Badu at the Rumble in the
Jungle hisses like a snake in a trance. The relaxed sound landscape is
deceptively simple melodies and complex harmonies. Relaxation is for the
listener but despite sometimes complexity of any guaranteed!

Die klangschau (Swiss-Germany)
(Romanie Marty)

***another winning review

Panda Transport is the American-French pair
Pseudogeschwister Kathy Compton and Thierry Holweck. With brockenhausreifen
laptops and lots of sunshine was “Plush Mechanique”created , a gentle Synthpop album
with  female vocals and bossa nova-impact.

Nothing new from the west while, but, as the harmonious and easy kauzigen
songs in a subtle charm, the one sneaking around the finger handles. Kathy
Compton’s voice tone oscillates between Kristin Hersh and Roisìn Murphy and acts like a warm kiss in the neck or a tröstende hand over the hair caresses.
Human feelings come despite Synthetic thus not too short.

With pieces as “Transmission” or “Paint by numbers” is the sunrise, “Le
voile” drinking one’s lunch coffee, “Devil in Me” schmust in the shadow of a
weeping willow, “Chapeau” is being discussed or hair and cool, to
client-like “Cosy” to be or not to be musing.

The record thrives on minimal and easily kauzigen character 08/15-Harmonien
naive. Unfortunately, the individuality largely on the route, surprises are
looking almost in vain. Panda want to transport their animals seem to secure
the rails gesitteten latte macchiato-Loungepop transport.

So gondelt the vans without big rattle and Gepolter by the vastness of the
country, leaving only a bit of dust and raised the rails on which so many
train took the same route. I personally enjoy me about the colorful
Zugsfassade and wait in the sun on the next one.

the Hook Mag(USA)

C-ville Mag(USA)

Music.ch(Swiss)

Rocktown weekly(USA)

Dailyprogress(USA)

Trespass.ch(Swiss)

music-islands.com(Japan)

mobil.sr(National Swedish radio playlist)

out-of-space(Swiss)

klangschau.com(Swiss)

missthesignpost(USA)

fictionalize.org(french)

starfrosch.ch(Swiss)

localm.com(USA)