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)

Amnesia Scanner & Freeka Tet - Ledge
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 139S2
Release Date: 01 June 2023
Purchase: PAN.lnk.to/Ledge
Pre-Order Album: PAN.lnk.to/STROBE.RIP

Amnesia Scanner and Freeka Tet share 'Ledge', the second single from the upcoming full-length album 'STROBE.RIP' out via PAN on June 16th.

Written by Amnesia Scanner
Produced by Amnesia Scanner & Freeka Tet
Mastered by Enyang Urbiks

Amnesia Scanner & Freeka Tet - Ledge (PAN 139S2)

Amnesia Scanner & Freeka Tet - STROBE.RIP
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 139
Release Date: 16 June 2023
Purchase: PAN.lnk.to/STROBE.RIP

Amnesia Scanner’s third full-length album titled STROBE.RIP is a collaboration with the artist and musician Freeka Tet, who joins the album and associated live performances as a vocalist and creative collaborator.

Released by PAN records, STROBE.RIP is part of a broader series of live performances, installations, videos and physical products created by the group.

Since its inception in 2014, Ville Haimala and Martti Kalliala have continued to evolve and redefine Amnesia Scanner through experimentation across online and IRL realms. This album brings them a step closer to the latter.

With French-born, New York City-based Freeka Tet on board, STROBE.RIP acquires a new array of influences that draw from the multidisciplinary artist’s hacker mindset, shaping the sound into new forms. As a programmer and technologist, Freeka Tet’s work straddles commerce and art, combining intuitive and performative modes of expression with emergent technology and creative coding. Much like Amnesia Scanner, Tet draws from online vernacular and techno-magic to create satirical, uncanny work – artificially augmented, and highly engineered sounds, textures, images and ideas that translate memes and code into a more human and affective language.

Haimala and Kalliala say, “Amnesia Scanner is now living in the world it has built,” signaling a sincere commitment to the act. The human dimension in STROBE.RIP is chaotic: a reverse hero’s journey that merges deep-fried baroque with the quasi-angelic into a psychotic megamix of tropes, lyrics, genres, and sonic palettes that are both disorienting and deeply resonant.

The opening track Tongue Demons perfectly summarizes this, with blaring synth stabs and frenetic drum patterns paving the way for a broken melody arranged through a digital brass chord progression. Giggle and Bounds follow right after: two outstanding pieces of introspection signaling the melodic turn of the album, with the latter almost posing as a weirdo 2-step ballad filled with deep pads and pitched-up and down vocals.

The 160bpm, 4-to-4 pulsing kicks of Ledge and the palm-muted chords of Disperse serve as a perfect build-up to Ride, right in the middle of the tracklist: a summer hit from hell, a crooked saxophone-graced tune carried by a crusty, Balearic acoustic arpeggio. The alt acoustics continue with Damon, or at least before the track turns from Nirvana’s Unplugged to Slayer’s double kick drum pedals and becomes thrashtronica with Tet on screamo duties.

Things get softer with Clown, specifically in the chanted refrain, and even more aetherial in the almost trip-hop timbres of abandoned.club, where chopped-and-screwed vocals sing “I lost myself in the club.” Scorpions, Bats & Spiders is the abstract gem declaring the death of Deconstructed Club Music—a genre created by journalists and pioneered by the duo, among others. The words “deconstructed,” “club,” and “panel discussion” are spelled out in a vortex throughout the track as if they were to be carved on the genre’s imaginary gravestone. Closing the album, the saw bass of Cat serves Euro-electro à la Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction, while the doomed outro Merge closes the album in a triumphant aggregation of noise and pixelated drums that render the image of a crust-punk ensemble.

Written by Amnesia Scanner
Produced by Amnesia Scanner & Freeka Tet
Mastered by Enyang Urbiks

Amnesia Scanner & Freeka Tet - Clown (PAN 139)

Amnesia Scanner & Freeka Tet - Disperse (PAN 139)

Various Artists 

I Am Here Now, When Will You Be Here Again?


“I Am Here Now, When Will You Be Here Again?” collects 28 contemporary voices, from or with connection to the music landscape of Copenhagen today. 


In 28 songs and more than two hours of music ”I Am Here Now, When Will You Be Here Again?” presents a multitude of expressions. An empty holiday retreat, a portrait of a season’s end. Echoes of emotion, laughter in the background, someone cried here too. Sandalwood scent or patchouli, rain pools gathering on the piled up daybeds, it is colder now. If the storm comes, i’ll let myself get carried away too. I am here now, when will you be here again?


The compilation is presented digitally and as a limited set of cassettes out late October “I Am Here Now, When Will You Be Here Again?” is the newest addition to a lineage of Posh Isolation compilations. Sung in voices of today it echoes a past cry;  


“Give me a mask to put my face in. A mask to put over my other mask. What do I care if some curious person sees my flaws? Let this mask, with its black eyebrows, blush for me.”


Posh Isolation 278

I Am Here Now, When Will You Be Here Again?

Lust For Youth - Blue Suzuki

listener

You Belong / Amsterdam

You Belong (feat. Lalla Skir)

remodulation

Tunes For Solitary Spots EP

Under The Tree

Flagalova - Under The Tree

Devotion

Night (DJ Lostboi Remix)

First single from @avastarr's EP "Angels In the Sand" forthcoming 05/02/21 on @slagwerk.

Mastering: @jesseosbornelanthier
Artwork: @amalcrossing

Angels In the Sand

PREMIERE: ava* - Return to Shore [SLA07]

Label based in Berlin, est. 2008. http://www.p-a-n.org