Knight Fare(post-war dub)

Evita Manji - Spandrel?
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 136
Release Date: 30 January 2023
Purchase: PAN.lnk.to/Spandrel

In evolutionary biology, the term spandrel refers to the features of an organism that aren't developments for survival, and seemingly possess no obvious purpose. The word is taken from an architectural label for the triangular spaces in the corner of an arch: small aesthetic elements that provide symmetry and demarcate boundaries. Musician and vocalist Evita Manji asks an opaque question on their debut album, wondering in the face of immense loss what elements of ourselves might be for endurance, and what might just be decoration. Their tracks, pieced together from the vapors of contemporary club music, baroque pop, and experimental sound design, are a way for Manji to examine their relationship with the world at large and within, disassembling systems of control and highlighting interconnectedness.

Manji has been an ethereal presence on the scene for the last few years, collaborating with numerous artists as both a sound artist and a creative director. Last year, they launched their own platform myxoxym, where they debuted two singles from "Spandrel?" and assembled an ambitious fundraiser compilation featuring Rainy Miller, Palmistry, Cecile Believe and others, raising money for Greek wildlife fund ANIMA. Performing across the world at festivals such as Unsound, Lunchmeat, and Rhizom, Manji has also appeared at clubs in Berlin and London, and was picked to represent the Shape+ platform in 2022. These experiences teem through "Spandrel?", helping them weave a complex artistic tapestry that seeks to look far beneath the surface of existence, attempting to balance the doom of global climate meltdown with themes of self-actualization, love, and bodily autonomy.

The album opens on the title track, an introductory précis that prepares listeners for what they're about to hear. Manji's vocals hum with a plugged-in sense of cybernetic melancholia, filtering the world's barrage of rhythms and harmonic themes into lithe, clubwise pop that's buoyed by their advanced sonics. From there, we're wrenched into the sadness of atmospheric lament 'Pitch Black', a meditation on death that submerges deep bass beneath layers of choral bliss, evoking the church and the dancefloor without sacrificing the power of each polar element. Their darkness is pushed from the inside to the outside on 'Oil/Too Much’, a commentary on the oil industry from the perspective of the animal kingdom that doubles as a neon-hued expression of contemporary depression. But it's on 'Body/Prison’ where Manji sounds most naked, speaking honestly about their life's darkest moments and confessing their deepest feelings over searing trance-inspired synths and grotesque percussion.

"Spandrel?" is an album that takes time to unravel, and Manji's themes resonate through history that's older than pop music. It's tragic, romantic, and poetic, and resolutely refuses to turn away from the era's most urgent concerns.

Production, writing, composition: Evita Manji
Co-production 'XYZ/Labyrinth': Ludwig Wandinger
Mix: Evita Manji
Master: Enyang Urbiks
Artwork: Spyros Droussiotis
Mask: Hermes Pittakos

Spandrel?

Evita Manji - Spandrel? (PAN 136)

Erwan Sene - Tilt
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 131S
Release Date: 17 March 2023
Purchase: pan.lnk.to/Tilt

Erwan Sene shares 'Tilt', the first single from the upcoming full-length album 'JUnQ' out via PAN on April 14th.

JUnQ, or the Journal of Unsolved Questions, is modeled on a parallel exercise: to sketch music and to score sculptures. Part exhibition, part book and part album release, JUnQ seeks to propose a collaborative language that binds the algorithmic needs of an artificial pop star to the performance of the artist himself. Boundaries between reality and artifice are blurred in a continuous chain of confrontation and sublimation, wherein a romance between analog evolution and digital experimentation is born.

Mixed by James Ginzburg
Mastered by Rashad Becker

Erwan Sene - Tilt (PAN 131S)

AS Truth

Whities 011 - Lanark Artefax
Release date - 9th June 2017
Buy - http://www.whiti.es/

A1 - Flickering Debris
A2 - Touch Absence
B1 - Hyphen To Splice
B2 - Voices Near The Hypocentre

Designed by Alex McCullough. Comic Panel by Joseph P Kelly.
Mastered by Matt Colton

 Distributed by Rush Hour

Thanks to Calum, Alex, Joseph, Matt, Olivia and Oskar!

011-Lanark Artefax: Flickering Debris/Touch Absence/Hyphen To Splice/Voices Near The Hypocentre

Artist: M.E.S.H. 
Album: Hesaitix
Cat.Nr: PAN 82
Format: LP / Digital
Release Date: 10 November 2017

buy: http://p-a-n.org/product/m-e-s-h-hesaitix-pan82/
bandcamp: https://optimate.bandcamp.com/album/hesaitix

Further departing from both the cinematic abstraction of ‘Piteous Gate’ and the hectic drums of ‘Damaged Merc’, Berlin producer M.E.S.H.’s new full-length, ‘Hesaitix’, is marked by its hyper-ornamented rhythms and a sense of pensive, moonlit spaces.

The atmosphere has shifted; the radical deconstruction of previous releases has given way to subtler interventions, building new structures in strange territories. Shifting from the meditative to states of manic unease, Hesaitix is an unnerving injection into both the social space of club music and the interior space of digital audio fantasy.

How did I become so stupid?

A sound can be both formless and over-rendered, like a boneless but fleshy hand from a life drawing class.

What agent could set these broken sounds in motion?

A laugh behind an evil curtain. A drummer that’s cool and grotesque, a detuned siren. A brushfire under a full moon.

Recorded in Berlin and Umbria, Hesaitix sees Janus resident and PAN staple M.E.S.H. firmly engaged in a kind of sonic worldbuilding, a place where the unconscious and the alien intersect.

The album is mastered by Rashad Becker, featuring artwork by Michael Guidetti & James Whipple.

Hesaitix

M.E.S.H. - Search. Reveal. (PAN 82)

decentralized networks, the new collective imaginary dream
FREE DOWNLOAD

WWWINGS x LAO - Untitled Track 1 (TALK)

Poise - The Remixes

Forest Coloss (Kablam Remix)

Julietta 7y (Eterna Refx)

From the compilation 'Under Stars / Shells In Colour' released by Posh Isolation 11th of December 2020

Under Stars / Shells In Colour

Schacke - Lowest Of The Low part 2

version of cover by sega bodega & lafawndah:
https://soundcloud.com/segabodega/teardrop-ft-lafawndah

AS Truth

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