Nippy In The Shade mp3 Maxwell Panther (demo for Sound is a Place EP) hop over to his bandcamp.com page and pay-what-you-will for this cool little EP

Lo-fi, lo-fi, lo-fi, lo-fi, lo-fi, lo-fi, lo-fi…. That’s what greets you when you hit Maxwell Panther’s MySpace page. And unlike many (if not most) of the new music that gets labeled as lo-fi, his stuff really is lo-fi. It’s just his guitar and him. Sometimes he turns the reverb up a bit, sometimes the distortion effect comes on a teensy bit to echo out his vocals. But ya know, it’s all really very simple. And the split second I heard Maxwell sing and play, I fell for it. I mean, I loved it.

It’s not always completely melodic, it’s not always what your ear expects. The words are always interesting though. And when he makes his Danelectro guitar squeal a little, I think that’s very sweet. I’ve been listening to his demos and snippets of songs and watching things evolve with his music for months and months now. And we’ve been chatting on twitter and MySpace and facebook about his music and where it’s going and where it’s been. It’s a small joy to crawl inside these musician’s heads for me.

This EP, Sound Is A Place, is perhaps the best thing he’s done, to my ears. He showed me once, a picture of all the cassette tapes he had collected over the years of his recordings, of songs he had written, either finished or unfinished. Along with this giant, unruly, colorful pile of plastic were various notebooks, scribbled in with lyrics. All of it was contained in a suitcase or valise or something with a handle. The man is just completely mental, constantly creating. I don’t know how he sorts out what to stick with and what to abandon. But with this EP he’s chosen the right ones. I’ve heard three or so versions of “Nippy in The Shade” and I love this finished one the most (it’s very much like this demo I’ve posted above… exactly the same, Maxwell? I can’t tell at this hour! 4 a.m. here, damnit!). I hope you enjoy this lo-fi morning, ease into your Monday, darlings… it’s gonna be a rough as fuck week ahead. I’ve got gigs galore, loads of work to do, and not nearly as much time as I want to do it all in. Happy Monday, bring us a coffee, will you? xoxo

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.