Andrew Veeder on September 23rd, 2013

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In one of its many capacities, music has the wonderful ability to transport you to another place. During a nearly 90-minute set at the Fonda Theater on Friday night, Gold Panda served as a conductor of sorts, navigating myriad genres and effectively stamping the crowd’s sonic passport again and again as they traveled the world and back.

• Photos by Carl Pocket

The U.K. musician, now living in Berlin, almost never stopped moving during his performance, his body bouncing and moving in a loose black T-shirt to every beat, sound and effect as he moved between his MPC, drum machines and pedals, curating a set that culled tracks from throughout his discography.

“Same Dream China” shimmered and developed slowly into house-y muffled bass hits punctuated by a rejiggered mandolin break. The three-step hook of “Junk City II” boomed over a subdued techno groove and the twinkling cascade of bells filled out the track beautifully. Old favorite “You,” from his debut full-length “Lucky Shiner,” grabbed the audience as it banged away in hard-hitting 4/4, with a blitz of tones ricocheting around in glitch fashion. And “Brazil,” from this year’s “Half of Where You Live,” proved to be a new highlight.

Shaped over an echoing bass line, a repeated male vocal sample of the title and dense, eclectic percussion, the track continued to build to a barrage of chimes and tapered down with a lush and lovely synth. Like a cross between Aphex Twin and Four Tet, Gold Panda’s music in inherently a mechanical construction, but incredibly human in its warmth and feel, with engaging hooks and emotive structure, never staying in one place for too long. The visual backdrop also conveyed this on-the-go sense, shifting from vantage points of looking over coral reefs spliced and cut out of sync, to looking up at buildings from street-level in the urban U.K., to looking out at trees from the window of a train.

The youth were out in droves for this all-ages show, opened by duo Voices of Black and followed by Slow Magic.

In between supporting acts, dozens of (presumably) young patrons sat peppered along the perimeter and side railings, further proving the fact that no one of legal drinking age ever sits down on a floor of a general admission show. But as Slow Magic took the stage, they were on their feet and feeling it in no time, as bodies pulsated in waves and arms thrusted to the beat. Clad in his signature neon zebra mask, eerily reminiscent of a fluorescent Donnie Darko rabbit guise infused with the ’80s toy Simon, Slow Magic enthralled the crowd by melding triggered samples with live percussion, effortlessly moving between the two and seamlessly switching up speeds.

The screen looked like a Rorschach ink blot, but vibrant and morphing. At one point he bought a drum down onto the floor and executed a bangarang solo as the crowd flanked him dancing from all angles, before climbing back on stage, resetting the drum, and exploding into the song’s end. The closest thing to banter this anonymous artist came was throwing up a heart formed by curling both hands upward. The feeling was mutual.