Trabants Premiere the Music Video for Their Swaggery Single “Purple Panther”

When you listen to Trabant’s new single “Purple Panther,” there is an unmistakable old-school vibe and attitude to it. Then you couple it with its official music video, and that becomes doubly apparent. From the brand new album Mirage, the song comes with a hand-created animated video. The clip was produced by Rough N’ Tumble Productions, and it’s meant to remind you of classic era animation that always came with such flavour and culture. It’s reminiscent of old animated shorts from Jim Henson, and cartoons like Rocky and Bullwinkle and The Pink Panther.

The video features the purple panther driving a Trabant, one of the most iconic small European cars of the mid-20th century. As the panther is driving along, he’s passing by some important landmarks in Trabants’ career. There’s ZuZu and The Plough and Stars, locations of many early Trabants shows. Then the panther makes his way past the Monty Bar in Los Angeles, which also became an important venue for the band. Then, he makes his way past the Kenton Club in Portland, where Trabant will be celebrating the record’s release. It’s a fun video that couples very well with the song. And it’s a nice throwback to simpler days of cartoon animation, before computers completely took over that space of creation.

Commenting on the song, Eric Penna states:

“The song’s swagger is augmented by guest saxophonist extraordinaire, Ron Dziubla, who has lent his talents to Duane Eddy, Joe Bonamassa, Nick Waterhouse and many more before providing the soul of this purple cartoon representation of the band.”

The brainchild of Eric Penna, the Portland-based Trabants is set to release Mirage on June 12th. The album’s focus is on duality and the question of what is real and what is not. These are questions that have arguably never been so prevalent. The duality of the abstract against the concrete was a primary foundation of the album’s recording process. The basic tracks were recorded on analog tape. Even the production and completion of the tracks was done with minimal use of computer technology. This created a lot of energy in the recording process, where Penna could just rely on his ears to feel his way through the recording.

Penna wanted Mirage to feel and sound classic. The songs sound vintage, and they feel human. There was minimal fussing over technology and how best to utilize it. Instead, energy could be solely devoted to recording these songs as they would have been recorded decades ago. With never-ending discussions of artificial intelligence and how it’s taking over our lives, Mirage arrives at a good time. It’s human music, recording in a human way, with a very human element behind it all. It’s music the way it’s meant to be experienced and enjoyed.

Tour Dates:

May 23 – Portland, OR @ Kenton Club (album release club show)
June 13 – Portland, OR @ Music Millennium (album release in-store)
July 24 – Seattle, WA @ Darrell’s Tavern for Surf X Surfwest
August 2 – Los Angeles area @ Surf Guitar 101 festival
August 6 – San Diego @ Tiki Oasis

Trabants ‘Mirage’ album artwork