Soaring, heartbreaking, really heavy and *gasp* REALLY CATCHY. The treacherous "difficult second album" from Arkansas' epic doom dealers Pallbearer is one of those records that you kind of wish every doom album sounded like, yet so few seem to pull it off. A heavy metal record absolutely unashamed to wear its heart on its sleeve and to embrace shimmering melodic bliss, Foundations Of Burden joins such classics as Solstice's New Dark Age, While Heaven Wept's Of Empires Forlorn and Warning's Watching From A Distance as a towering testament to how beautiful, cathartic, honest and human doom metal can really be. (Although we're guessing this is the only one on that list that debuted in the Billboard Top 100 - Wha???). All pretenses are stripped away. There's no concern here with sounding evil, occult or clinically suicidal. Instead this is gut wrenching, soul baring stuff. As a band Pallbearer have improved immensely since their already highly acclaimed debut Sorrow And Extinction, and no element more so than Brett Campbell's vocals. While before they took a bit of a backseat to the immense riffery, here the vocals are much more in focus, no longer buried in the sludge, sounding like some shadow cast hybrid of Ozzy, Trouble's Eric Wagner and Patrick Walker from the aforementioned, much missed and deeply mourned Warning/40 Watt Sun. The balance of weariness and drama he's able to convey really elevates Pallbearer's songs, imbuing them with a sort of classic theatrical tragedy. The production on the record (courtesy of Billy Anderson) is also perfectly enormous. There seems to be space everywhere, but also a real warmth and cohesion between the instruments - overwhelming, crushing, but strangely comforting. And as for that catchiness we mentioned earlier� These songs have some serious hooks, and for 10+ minute songs that move approximately apace of a huge and heavily sedated prehistoric snail, that's no small feat. But there's a real ear for songwriting and harmony here, that manages never to sacrifice the heaviness or punishing plod of the music. And while heaviness, heartbreak and humongous riffs are all well and good, the album's true highlight might come in the form of the penultimate "Ashes" - clocking in at only three minutes and consisting mostly of electric piano and vocals, it sounds like it would be more at home on a Mogwai record. It's easily the album's least heavy and most sparse moment, but it's also the most devastating and beautiful, and a perfect offset to the slow motion crushing gravity of the rest of the album. Doom album of the year contender. Metal album of the year contender. Let's just say album of the year contender and leave it at that.
FYI, the vinyl double lp version pretty much sold out already, but is being repressed...
With a name like Pallbearer, and a record cover that looks like an illustration from some obscure Dungeons and Dragons monster manual, you might be expecting some grim, oozing blackened slo-mo tarpit creep, or heck maybe even some full on over the top swords and sorcery power metal epic-ry, but what you might not expect, is precisely what this Arkansas doom crew conjures up, a surprisingly melodic, and downright dreamy chunk of true epic, super melodic, classic sounding doom, complete with acoustic guitars and soaring clean vocals, all wound around a sound that's more warm and fuzzy and washed out oftentimes than downtuned and sludgey. Reminding us a bit of aQ faves Megaton Leviathan, the same sort of shoegazey sound and dreamily psychedelic vibe, but Pallbearer sound much more beholden to classic metal, with some of these songs sounding like some lost eighties metal jam, slowed down and blissed out, often slipping into almost slowcore dirgery, that sort of haunting druggy mesmer, still epic and melodic, but more bleary and gauze-y, with the guitars not crunchy and buzzy, so much as thick and dense and lushly layered, the songs slow building and hauntingly brooding. Not that Pallbearer, aren't heavy, they most definitely are, like on "Devoid Of Redemption", a re-recorded track from their demo, the sound is massive, the guitars thick and churning, the drums a muted massive pound, but even then, those clean vocals change the whole vibe, and within the music itself, the melodies almost sound like horns, mournful and funereal, and the sound, even at its heaviest, seems to ooze into something much more dreary and dreamy and druggy. The recording and production too, perfectly suits the sound, vintage and classic, the sound Sabbathy, and Candlemass-y and St. Vitus-y, heavy but spacious, plenty of reverb, and deftly applied effects, but smeared and subtly stretched into something even more crushingly heavy, spaced out and psychedelic, and weirdly hauntingly lovely, a sound that's both murky and mesmerizing, magical and mysterious, which is making this a new favorite with the metalheads around here and a definite contender for doom record of the year...
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2nd album from Mark Nelson's other project (he's also in Labradford) has all of the exceptionally slo-mo electronics, blurry guitar, and dubby processing found on the first Pan American album, but with guest appearances from Alan & Mimi of Low on vocals (which is good) and Rob Mazurek of Isotope 217 on coronet (which is jazz). Its sad to witness such digressions of good post-rock into questionable jazz-fusion wankiness.
Mark Nelson began recording under the Pan American moniker back in 1997, overlapping his contributions in the seminal slowcore, post-rock trio Labradford. He continued on with Pan American after Labradford called it quits a couple years later, and even as Pan American's catalogue has now eclipsed that of Labradford, much of Pan American's sound stems from the Labradford ethos -- spacious melodies, an electronic dubby minimalism, the whisper of a song, and a world-weary miserablism. Here on Cloud Room, Glass Room, Nelson has rechristened Pan American as a full fledged band with avant-drone percussionist Steven Hess (On, Haptic, etc.) at his side and former Labradford bassist Bobby Donne returning to the fray once again. Throughout Cloud Room, Glass Room, there are plenty of slumping passages of restrained guitar drones and layered electronic wash that are as contemplative and open-ended as the night sky. Pan American puncture spells of this ambience with some far more structured pieces when Hess grounds Nelson's guitar drifts with a sense of rhythm, even on the quietly locomotive skitter of "Project for an Apartment Building." Add Donne back into the mix, and it's easy to hear the ghosts of Labradford once again. "Virginia Waveform" could almost be a Codeine instrumental with those slow descending basslines and washed out, blurring guitars, and the opening cut "The Cloud Room" with its weightless flutter from guitars and electronics hovering above the earthbound rhythm section with its decidedly American-frontiersman slow pacing.
Pan American is the solo project of Mark Nelson, who we first discovered via the late great Labradford, a group whose gorgeous brooding minimal post rock most definitely informed much of what's gone on since. Nelson began Pan American to explore his blossoming interest in computer music, electronica, dub and techno, stretching the sounds he created in Labradford and crafting dark landscapes of mysterious electronic sound, dreamlike stretches of minimal droning drift, and skittering softly stuttering and swirling textured ambience.
For Waiting For Chasing was originally released in a super limited edition back in 2006, and is easily PA's most minimal outing, skeletal and spare, haunting and otherworldly, the songs here drift, and slowly unfold, the rhythms are less rhythmic, and more textural, the opener here, "Love Song" is the perfect example, chittering clicks are draped over lush layers of whirling chordal thrum, chiming bells unfurl muted melodies, the sounds softly smeared into bleary streaks, bits of field recordings, static, glitch, all woven into PA's gorgeous soft swells of sound. Absolutely lovely dreamlike ambience, but flecked with distinctly un-ambient elements, which is what makes the sounds here so compelling.
Later PA records definitely moved in directions that some of us found way less appealing, but it's pretty impossible not to love this one.
Fields of crackle and mournful creak, looped melodies buried under layers of hiss and hum, woozy and warbly and dreamily indistinct, crumbling textures, smoldering layers, hazy fields of glimmer and muted loops, Oval like underwater swirl, dubbed out barely there beats stretch into heartbeat like pulses, bell like tones, glitch bursts of staticky melody, it's all just so fantastically hushed and lovely, culminating in the final track, "Amulls" which is as much about the melody, way down in the mix, off in the distance, a softly reverbed lullaby, tinkling piano, drifting minor key melody, all beneath a patina of crackle, a crackle which almost begins to sound rhythmic, like the some nearly invisible crystalline framework, around the delicate melancholy within. So so nice.
Eight serene pastoral soundscapes is what's in store for you on the fourth full length from Pan American (aka Mark Nelson, also a member of Labradford). All awash with a soft insect-like buzzing, this album is much less minimal than its predecessor. Ghostly extended tones -- some warmly enveloping, others banshee-shrill -- are emitted from both acoustic (trumpet and flugelhorn) and electronic sources, while meditative guitar string plucking provides some more active movement to the proceedings. Vocals appear fleetingly as mere vaporous whispers. Indeed, Nelson seems once again hell-bent (uh, maybe that's too strong a word?) on lulling us all into the most pleasing slumber. This is the perfect disc for your most stressed-out friend.
Special note regarding the cd version: We're not sure how long they'll be around, but if you're quick like a bunny, you'll nab yourself a copy that comes with a bonus dvd!
More soothing, minimal atmospheric washes with deeeep bass thuds from Mark Nelson (also of Labradford). We've had a number of people come in lately asking for "relaxing music", and well, if any of those folks are listening now, they can be assured that Pan
Labradford had long been the American precursor to the lugubrious noir that Bohren & Der Club Of Gore had masterfully grafted with doom. But now that Labradford has quietly ceased activities, guitarist Mark Nelson has fully embraced his solo project Pan American, which had been running concurrently with Labradford for the past seven or eight years. Without Bobby Donne's lonesome bass as a foundation to work with, Nelson's Pan American has relied heavily upon glitchy electronic rhythms and dub-injected studio tricks with varying degrees of success. Perhaps now that Labradford is no more, the Pan American project has taken on a greater sense of purpose as White Bird Release is easily the most accomplished Pan American record to date. There's much less of that dubby electronica to be found on this album; but when employed, Nelson's skeletal pulses enjoy a rich noir ethos resembling those scarce moments of darkened prog-rock dirge for organ and drums offered up on that Deathprod boxset a few years back. But for the most part, Nelson seems comfortable with the Fripp & Eno style streams of pastoral guitar ambience dotted with softened static, smokey vibes, and gracefully arcing drones.
The album is based on a letter from Dr. Robert Goddard to H.G. Wells written in 1932 and concerned with the possibility of space flight. While many of the obvious references to White Bird Release harken to the deep space cosmology from the '70s (e.g. Fripp & Eno, Cluster, Schulze, etc.), Nelson's work is not a departure from this rock travelling around the sun, but rather a glance upward to the heavens, while remaining firmly grounded below.
The cd has one extra track not to be found on the vinyl.
"Personal Setting" is a split release of electronica-dub from Pan American, Komet, and Fisherofgold. Mark Nelson has transformed his Pan American from a slightly electronic version of Labradford (Nelson's other project) into a VladislavPoleKitClaytonDelay dub
First things first. SKATERS. 100 COPIES. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT. You know the drill. Anyway, James from the Skaters steps out on his own for this brief blast of free drone loveliness. Under the name Pan Dolphinic Dawn (thus the Dolphin on the cover, although not sure how the swastika on the other side figures into things), James wanders through murky tunnels of muted noise, thick, and dense, with mumbled rumbles and whirs piled up into near melodic waves of sound. Lots of reverb makes the whole thing sound pliable and soft like a pillow dipped in tar, like you could just dunk your head right into the middle of this 7", but the murk is thick and viscous enough that you would most likely be unable to pull yourself free and would end up suffocating, ears full of molten goo. But what a way to go.
Vinyl-only (with download), limited to 300 copies, on Utech, beautifully packaged, complete with obi, with a gorgeous cover painting depicting a scene from ancient Chinese mythology that's referenced by the band name. Oh, and the music? It's pretty fantastic too, if hard to describe, being an improv session featuring Leslie Low (The Observatory, Arcn Tmpl) and Lasse Marhaug (Jazzkammer) doing a chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter routine, Leslie working with loops of acoustic guitar and voice, gauzey and droney and soft, that meld with the extreme washes of crackling distortion and electronic glitch dished out by Lasse. And it works, the harsh high end insectoid skree sounds and the lovely mesmeric moody looping ones achieving an intriguing harsh/moody synthesis, separately and together quite satisfying to adventurous ears. Imagine, say, something gorgeously drifting and droney on Time Released Sound, remixed by Merzbow. Very nice indeed!!
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In losing the 'A' from their name and assigned the missing letter as the title of their latest record (a OULIPO style fuck-you to the electronics giant), Pan Sonic (aka Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisainen) have certainly mellowed out, in favor of bleak minimal tones accompanying very downtempo beats. As their previous outings have been ear splitting documents of harsh phase shifting over hyperkinetic throbbing techno, A is surprisingly calm and melodic.
Pan Sonic -- the Finnish duo of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen -- have taken up residency in Barcelona, which has made quite an impact upon the duo's electro-magnetic aesthetic. Their arctic and crystalline techno minimalism didn't staand a chance against the Barcelona sun. Heat and humidy have warmed up Pan Sonic's oscillators, random noise generators, and antique '80s drum machines causing them to vibrate with an almost mechanized clatter. Regardless of location, Pan Sonic is still in the business of manufacturing an alienated electrical field that is at times hostile, and at others, sublime. On "Aalthopiiri," the duo infuses stuttering grooves (more of skeletonized mid-'80s electro stomp than the spectral techno of their contemporaries like Thomas Brinkmann or Wolfgang Voigt) and tonal purism with an increasingly searing white hot / saw tooth buzz. Throughout the album, Pan Sonic terminates the rhythms to let the constant electric flux of their machines speak. These anti-rhythmic interludes specify just how unique the Pan Sonic sound has become by modulating in organically complex abstractions which thankfully lack all of the studied sterility of the Raster / Ritornell click.
Yet another triumph for the electron courtesy of Pan Sonic.
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Of course the single following their new album A must be titled B...where the album was a slow moving expanse of downtempo breakbeats and an icey sheen of minimalist bleeps, the single is an abusive techno blast with a the panzer march of a 303 setting the quick pace for buzzing electrostatic riffs. Sounds much closer to earlier Panasonic releases like Kulma and Vakio than to the newer stuff. And, it's of course great on 33 too!
Here stands the final report from Finnish electronic music masters Pan Sonic, a heavy, super distorted, seriously aggressive swansong, as Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen have decided to call it quits, years after releasing their first ep on the now seminal Sakho label. Moire patterns of phase-shifting bleeps and spiralling waves held their Sputnik orbits around punishingly simple techno drum programming in their earliest incarnation, with much of their gear being hand-built or repurposed from Russian technology that occasionally crossed the border into Finland. Hence, the Pan Sonic take on techno has always been unique compared to even the most innovative of techno producers, with their typical arsenal of Roland gear. Throughout those 16 years, the rhythms of Pan Sonic have shifted away from the techno monophunk and towards a mechano-electro swagger. Ghosts of Suicide's rockabilly influence, the industrial foundations laid by Throbbing Gristle, and the psychoacoustics transmitted from Xenakis' electronic scores all manifest within Pan Sonic. Much of the poetics of the group's sound are based on the tiniest of objects, amplified through extraordinary means as to express the sublime power of X-rays, radio waves, and the energy housed within the atom itself. The title Gravitoni refers to a hypothetical particle that has been predicted within quantum physics to be related to gravitational force and its correlative relationship to spacetime.
The album begins with the Pan Sonic duo revving their electrical engines and expelling visceral riffs of cathode-ray noise grafted upon urgent breakbeat rhythms whose pace hurtles down the path of linear particle accelerators, smashing into anything that gets in their way. But gradually, the album sublimates the rhythm amidst arctic reverberations of electrical pings cast against the walls of a huge metallic chamber. This progression from the claustrophobic to the expansive harkens to Pan Sonic's masterful 4cd boxset Kesto which took a similar sonic route and which positions Gravitoni as a fantastic finale to an incredible career. So recommended!
In 2004, the Finnish tech-minimalist duo Pan Sonic unleashed Kesto, a massive 4cd boxset that encapsulated all of their ideas, one half focused on their style of augmenting minimalist techno with engine propelled noise, while the other half concerned itself more with stripping everything away resulting in sublimely still abstractions of electron orbits and cathode ray hum. Three years later, Pan Sonic have yet to match that body of work, even after they applied plenty of those strategies to their acclaimed collaboration with John Duncan; and in many ways, Katodivaiche is an impressive recapitulation of Kesto with the necessary fine-tunings and adjustments that continue to keep Pan Sonic at the forefront of contemporary electronica. The first track enjoys the company of Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadottir, whose languid notes counterpoint the clinical breakbeats shifting Pan Sonic's homage to Throbbing Gristle closer to contemporaries like Murcof or Polmo Polpo. While the next couple of tracks are Pan Sonic's trademarked blasts of concussive bomb noise exploding over low slung technotic grooves, Pan Sonic drops a dubstep number next, which should be the template for where South London should go next with that sound. Like the best tracks from Kode 9 and Burial, Pan Sonic focus on the physicality of stalking basslines while shifting layers of rhythm glide above effortlessly. Elsewhere, the phase shifting bleep and bloop which dominated the early Pan Sonic recordings return, perhaps in response to a series of minimalist techno singles released by Berlin's Sleeparchive who shamelessly / brilliantly appropriated the Pan Sonic / Plastikman sound. Altogether, it's a brilliant, if somewhat familiar sounding album from the masters of Finnish electronica.
Sometime in 2002, the Finnish techno-minimalists Pan Sonic embarked on an incredible world tour which took them to some truly exotic locations including Singapore, Tijuana, and Easter Island. By the time they got back to Europe, Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio was exhausted to the point of having to cancel their travels through Eastern Europe and even into Africa. Despite the fatigue, Pan Sonic managed to find their way back in the studio where they produced Kesto, a monumental 4cd set of all new material.
The first two discs show that Pan Sonic are still at the top of their game. Here, they revisit many of the rhythmic assaults that Pan Sonic unleashed on their debut album Vakio with low slung electro-breaks alternating with metronomic techno grooves set in a volatile field of blistering electricity. Where Vakio's intensity came from a psychoacoustic interplay of ice-cold tonalities, Kesto's rhythmic facets explode through stomp box distortion dynamics applied to their analog synths. The first two discs romp for over 100 minutes of aggressive incendiary electronica that's absolutely spectacular.
The final two discs of Kesto present the more introspective sides of Pan Sonic. The third disc is not dissimilar to Vainio's exquisite solo albums on Touch, as Pan Sonic suspend magnetically charged fragment against a blackened field and documents their interactions. The last disc is the weakest of the bunch offering an hour long homage to Charlemagne Palestine where they come across as a little too constrained by Palestine's static minimalism. Other homages dot the earlier discs with much greater panache, including reverential nods to Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, Bruce Gilbert, Keiji Haino, and Alvin Lucier.
Kesto will undoutably stand out as one of the best electronica albums of 2004.
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While the previous live album from Pan Sonic was mostly comprised of sequenced elements from various Panasonic (as they were known then) and Mika Vainio recordings, this live recording seems to showcase the group generating new sounds not found on any of their
Back in 1995, Pan Sonic was known as Panasonic (before the hi-fi conglomerate felt threatened by a bunch of Finns' using their name), and was a trio comprised of Mika Vaino, Ilpo Vaisanen, and Sami Salo. These performances document the crystalline distillation of industrial-noise bruitism / hypnotic minimal techno that inspired Paul Smith of Blast First to sign Pan Sonic to his label (and thus lined them up to land on Mute here in the US). Some of the material from these performances ended up on their first album "Vakio" but also includes some of Mika Vainio's solo recordings as Ø, and thankfully some unreleased material (including one great track which sounds sort of like "Convincing People" by Throbbing Gristle - without Genesis' vocals, of course). You'll certainly have to watch the bass response from your speakers when you play this, as these recordings weigh a little too heavy on deep rumbling bass tones, which probably sounded awesome live, but will undoubtedly cause your neighbors some grief. This is packaged annoyingly in a die-cut oversized plastic card, which may be handy if you wanted to bind it in your day planner.
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Reissue of Panasonic's first album now features the 'legal' spelling of their name. Working with the psychoacoustic principles of phase shifting and beats generated from similar frequencies slammed against each other, Pan Sonic demonstrates the brutality of minimalist electronica.
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Sure there's a novelty to a collaborative album recorded by the figureheads from two generations of uncompromising (and at times brutal) minimalism, but this is not your garden variety resuscitation of crotchety '60s minimalism by Jim O'Rourke. When Charlemagne Palestine and Pan Sonic set organs, oscillators, and random noise generators to constantly warble for over an hour, their intentions are far from benevolent. This album of uneasy listening was commissioned by the VRPO Radio in the Netherlands and is limited to 1000 copies. If you blink, you'll probably miss it.
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From the liner notes: "Rude Mechanicals were unskilled assistants used in early medical operations who performed rudimentary tasks such as restraining and muffling un-anaesthetized patients as well as catching their dismembered body parts and fluids in buckets."
Crawforth, Newman, Vainio, and Vaisanen use this motif to meld all sorts of drones, blips, bleeps, cricks, creeks, moans, and melodies from such sound artists as Bruce Gilbert, Scanner, Jimi Tenor, Kaffe Matthews, Simon Fisher Turner, Susan Stenger (Band of Susans), etc... into an extraordinarily cohesive collaborative project of pulsing noise.
Woah! Talk about an unexpected, yet killer collaboration. In this corner, arctic electronic experimentalists Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen (aka Pan Sonic), from Finland. In the other corner, blackclad Emily The Strange lookalike and psych guitar shaman Keiji Haino, from Tokyo, Japan. Both parties know a thing or two about manipulating electricity, noise, and drone. You'll hear plenty of that here, the Vainio/Vaisanen/Haino trio recorded live in Berlin, November 2007.
Heck, we're always happy hearing Haino in any setting, but it turns out that Pan Sonic are particularly perfect to accompany him, they bring the darkness too... note that it's usually Haino's unique presence that makes itself felt most prominently in any collaboration with which he's been involved (Boris, Merzbow, Sitaar Tah, Zeitkratzer, etc.), and such is the case here, even the title is obviously Haino-esque. And nothing else sounds like his occasional, anguished vocals, which when they appear here, are in stark organic contrast to the digital, mechanical machinations of his co-conspirators Pan Sonic.
Guttural throat-torn outbursts from Haino screech forth over palpitating drum machine clicks and throbbing low-end pulses. Sizzling buzz and whirr wreathe the proceedings. Haino's whale call guitar feedback breaches the dark void, Tibetan monks are channelled. The dynamics shift from mysterious quiet groans and beautiful keening drones to loud, out and out distorted glitch/guitar warfare... It's been a loooong time since there's been an album from Haino's band Fushitsusha, but this is the next best thing!
Well, we dunno if you can download a blackhole but basically there's equivalent blackness and gravity on this compact disc, that we'd be happy to sell to you. And unlike any download, it's housed in nice Stephen O'Malley designed digipack packaging with the artists' names in spot varnish on the cover.
Recent AQ Record Of The Week honorees Pan Sonic team up again with surprise partner Keiji Haino, the Tokyo psych shaman himself. More proof of the mysterious Finland-Japan connection. Previously the extreme electronic duo and the guttural guitar guru had collaborated on a live-in-concert cd for Blast First Petite, Shall I Download A Black Hole And Offer It To You, which we heralded as the next best thing to a Fushitsusha recording. Apparently only days after that show in Berlin, Pan Sonic and Haino went into the studio for another go-round. Again, drone and darkness are manipulated here by the masters.
As bombastic as Pan Sonic has been throughout their career, it shouldn't be a surprise that Keiji Haino is the dominant force on this record (he was on the live one too) with Pan Sonic sublimating their Tesla coil bursts of electricity into a reverberant tapestry of rumbling basstones and undulating frequencies. On only a few occasions will you find the Vainio / Vaisanen duo sequencing anything rhythmic, with Haino taking that opportunity for a rather clean-sounding guitar solo on the quintessentially Haino title "Without Doubt, An Attestation Written From That Time, Will No Longer Have Effect, Because The Wound Has Widened So Much." The pairing works much better when Haino channels voice, guitar, electronics, and drums through an abstracted slant on his existentialist poetics such as manifesting his lung-torn shrieks and obliterated guitar distortion in parallel to the dive-bomb electrical storms from Pan Sonic on "I Have Embedded It Approximately 2 Minutes And 7 Seconds Into The 4th Song, In Order To Return Here Whenever I Wish." Perhaps, this was originally conceived as an electronic recapitulation of Fushitsusha, but Synergy works best when evoking the shadowy ritualism of Haino's more ambient act Nijiumu to manifest this expressively infernal recording.
So, while Keiji Haino and Pan Sonic only managed a couple of days working together back in 2007, it seems that not a minute was wasted during that time, as they managed to make two great recordings together. We don't know why the live one was cd-only, and this studio album released as lp-only, but that's the way it is. Again, art/design by Stephen O'Malley, a deluxe package indeed, and quite LIMITED.
Solo project of Labradford guitarist Mark Nelson makes it onto cd, who adopts a dubbed-out electronica approach to the murky southern gothic soundtracks already mastered by the aforementioned Labradford. Very lovely, and Labradford fans certainly will feel at home. Highly recommended!
Another Osmose-label double cd reissue. Pan-Thy-Monium was Swedish metalmaster Dan Swano's avant-death-metal project, which culminated in the totally Zornified AQ-fave "III: Khaooos & Kon-Fus-Ion" disc some years back. Utterly off the wall experimental metal. More recently, Dan spawned the similarly-inspired Karaboudjan ep which received high marks on AQ-List #115. This double cd
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Instead of worshipping Satan, these bizarre Swedish metallers made up their own pantheon of gods, foremost among them "Raagoonshinnaah," the mythology of whom they celebrate on the four epic tracks of this release. The music ranges from bluesy psychedelic rock, to grunting grindcore, to free jazz, to ambient synth-scapes...A few spins of this and you too might find religion.
Fourth in a series from the fledgling, but well funded electronica label Caipirinha. The concept: electronica "interpretations" of, or tributes to, (mostly modernist) architects and their works. Writing about music, dancing about architecture--ack! we're dealing with both here! This fourth entry is from the terror-show junglist Panacea, who has chosen Oscar Niemeyer as his subject. Niemeyer was the architect of Brasilia, the utopian project of building a modernist captial city deep within the isolated heartland of Brazil in the 1950s. One of the features of Brasilia was a purposeful absence of pedestrian life in favor of the efficiency of the automobile, and as a result the place has obtained the stigma of being a sterile city in a country that is rich in cultural liveliness. Panacea has had a knack for (violent) alienation on his previous recordings, and this one is certain a bleak listen, but his rapid-fire junglist beat destruction isn't really deployed here. (Nor, for that matter, does this album feature any of the electro/hiphop workouts for which Panacea is also known.) Rather, he showcases a staccatic array of ping pong oscillations and eerie organ chords. By the end of the record, a few of his brutalist breaks do seep through the chlorine drenched electronics. On the whole, tho, this is Panacea sounding close to Pan Sonic. As with every other release in the series, the concept and the sound are two non-convergent trains of thought... so much so that the music really could exist without us having to know that this had anything to do with Oscar Niemeyer. Despite the the questionablity of the series concept, 'Brasilia' is an interesting twist on Panacea's electronic brutality, venturing into a more abstract realm than before. One of his best efforts in fact.
Distorted beats and random live samplings from our favorite techstep artist, the formerly chubby now hunky Panacea. Not one of his more focused efforts of hiphop infused techno chaos, maybe a bit too heavy on the chaos. Too much mix, not enough content I guess. Inside there are some photots of the new Panacea, all buffed out and trim. Methinks maybe he traded in his creativity and spunk with his love handles. Fans though will find stuff to like.
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German "dance" music just gets more and more brutal as Panacea pushes the intensity of techstep (a la Nico, Trace and Rush) to its current limit. I cannot imagine that beats can get any harder or darker, or more searingly distorted. Nor that an Izod shirt could go so well with army fatigues and a lip piercing. Highly, highly recommended. Butthole Surfers fans take note.
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As the picture on the sleeve can attest to, it is time for Panacea to claim his rightful position as the Susan Powter of electronica, while musically, his breakbeat mania turns toward hip hop and away from the simplistic brutalism of his earlier records.
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Oh how we LOVE LOVE LOVE the rotund German darkstep musician Panacea. Finally, the domestic release of Panacea's second album sees the light of day (with two US-only bonus tracks absent from the import). Monstrous apocalyptic breaks and industrial noise that has been mutated far from the tropes of drum & bass that it may have transcended such a description. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for those with strong ears.
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Not so much of the techstep brutality Panacea has been known for, rather our favorite German techno fella finds himself building heavy Wagnerian electronica for Japanese pop singer Hanayo...pretty amazing. Dunno about the "beat-up little girl" look Hanayo's got going, though.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Animal Collective's Panda Bear has been releasing an amazing string of singles and splits in anticipation of his new solo album, and this newest single, Bro's, is the best yet.
An extended dose of Phil Spectorish wall of sound, Brill Building beats, layered and shifting vocal harmonies and a hint of Jim "Witchi Tai" Pepper's Native American jazz pop reverie. The B-side is a subdued remix by Terrestrial Tones that complements the single nicely!
Oh panda bears, they're so peculiarly roly-poly, black and white. Wait a sec, one of these things is not like the others! This entity calls himself Panda Bear, but there is little if anything in common with those creatures. Well, they do have opposable thumbs. Perhaps he survives on a strict diet of bamboo shoots? Seems unlikely. Anyways, this music maker, also known as Noah Lennox, also known as one of the founders of Animal Collective, has followed up his fine solo album Young Prayer which came out last year with this two-song 7" record. Oh and we should add that he somehow also finds time to record under the moniker Jane (whose recent Coconuts cd we've been throughly enjoying) to boot. "I'm Not" and "Comfy In Nautica" are both definitely in a similar hazy vein as his Jane material -- psych, avant-folk, drones among other things are once again drawn together into his whirlpool of sound -- but perhaps there's a bit more of a pop influence that makes its way into the mix to very good effect. Fits nicely right between Jane and the most recent Animal Collective album Feels. This is also apparently on the cdep format but we haven't gotten those yet...
This is one of those rare records that totally captures and captivates you the very first time you hear, and somehow you can already tell that it's most definitely going to be a part of your life for a long time to come. With its expansive sound and spot on use of repetition and irresistible melodies this is an album with so much charm and character, so much power and passion, that it's impossible not to get swept up in its sunbaked glaze.
Person Pitch arrived right around the first day of Spring and we immediately found ourselves basking in the sun dappled glory of this, the latest outing from Noah Lennox, who not only records as Panda Bear on his own, but also is a member of like minded sonic explorers Animal Collective and Jane. Brian Wilson and Beach Boys inspired records are old hat these days and in fact we've sort of begun to dread the singular vision and by rote re-creation of bands aping the colorful pop melodies that Wilson created. Sugary Beach Boys worship has grown so prevalent in the last several years, we were definitely bit skeptical when we started hearing about the very Beach Boys-esque new Panda Bear record. But what's so refreshing about Person Pitch is hearing someone finally dig deeper, discovering the more magical and glorious elements of the Brian Wilson/Beach Boys sound. Taking ideas and inspiration from the experimental and instrumental golden gem "Diamond Head" on the Friends album as well as creating gloriously high in the sky vocal melodies Lennox has found a way to mix oddity with conventional beauty and the results are divine. Stretching sound and using repetition to create a trance like state that makes you wanna close your eyes and rock your body back and forth or just space out and stare into space until you start really seeing stars.
We already know this will be the soundtrack to so many warm summer nights, spontaneous afternoon getaways, and car rides on the coast heading for the beach and getting lost in sand, sky and sun. So totally recommended!
How do you follow up one of the most well received and influential albums of the last decade? Well if you're Panda Bear you just make another brilliant record that isn't afraid to veer from the formula of the previous album, the beloved Person Pitch, and create a new tapestry of trance inducing unrivaled pop bliss. While not as immediately catchy and in your face as Person Pitch, Tomboy displays a more nuanced and subtle approach to Panda Bear's production and songwriting, while still filled with such lush sound and so many golden hooks and dreamy melodies. There is almost a song cycle feeling to Tomboy, each song interconnected and unfurling with such a tranquil and hypnotic flow It's remarkable how Panda Bear is able to sing almost nonstop throughout this album, yet his voice really does still seem like another instrument, perfectly floating just above the sea of sound below, radiating a glowing sonic warmth throughout the album.
It would have been easy for Panda Bear to do another take at Beach Boys influenced psychedelia, and there is plenty of that still present, but we love how he took his time making this record and really created a new record with a new sound with its own singular vision. There are moments of course, that seem to follow in the considerable wake of Person Pitch, but there are so many new sounds and approaches which all serve to make Tomboy its own fantastic and hauntingly original beast, as potent and satisfying as his past glories. Maybe even moreso. So great!
Who doesn't love a panda bear? This PB is of the rare musical breed also found to fraternize with the likes of the enigmatic Animal Collective and Avey Tare. Live, they're really something to experience with all improv-ing participants seemingly locked on the same wavelength (sorta like U.S. Maple, but not quite). Obviously on record, this astonishing psychic connection is much less apparent. Anyways, this is Panda Bear's solo album, but he was by no means all by his lonesome. Indeed, some of his Animal Collective brethren were close at hand. The proceedings were captured by Deakin and produced by Come Winter, both of the AC. Much of the loosely-strung, meandering avant folk deconstructions and psychedelic experimentations on Young Prayer seems randomly pieced together, but on closer scrutiny you will find some grasp of order. Very hushed, unadorned and introspective with mournful non-verbal vocals reaching out through the precarious acoustic guitar pluck 'n' strum foundations. Not for everyone, but fans of Animal Collective and co. will surely feel the mesmerizing allure of this Panda Bear.
