Live in Paris at Parkingstone, January 2020. 

Paris, the winter of a war that started in the 19th century. 

"Rocket Science," the exiled child of an exiled mother, finds himself in the spotlight of an empty room, 

As “Princess," the inheritor of an ancestral home that no longer exists, finds herself in the midst of interpersonal relationships falling to pieces, 

As “bod," the trance state, is in the middle of a psychosis induced by decades of abuse and use, 

As a system had formed in opposition to the system that developed in opposition to the system that developed in opposition to a group of aristocrats that had refused to let an island to the West go. 

This island found itself trapped by war, and became the largest Empire of the world, yet the story began in Paris. 

Within and between each filmic architectural construct, each bite of food that tasted of lordship, and each smile that contained a pitying gaze, I found myself as you, and you as I. 

Where did the Reverse Opium War begin? Why did nobody believe the verified research I had compiled? Why did they only believe it when the white kids started repeating my words? 

Rocket Science stayed quiet, Princess cried, and bod screamed. The cameras failed as the videos began to strobe. The sound system began to feedback in perfect tune with the music. The hearts of my friends broke. 

bod told Princess, there is no writing that matters without the shed of blood. Princess confirmed this with Rocket Science. 

They made an agreement: Read the Testament, understand the Koran, and never speak of Dao. The dead sea scrolls will survive, and the rest will be part of wars that gave birth to Rocket Science, the wars that killed Princess, will be the war that bod can never escape from.

bod [包家巷] – Live in Paris (Excerpt) [VOID_065]

Singer-songwriter, percussionist, and producer Sakura Daijin’s second release, Time Apart, is a collection of songs written over a span of several years about longing and distance– and how a person contends with seemingly opposed concepts– the desires for closeness and space. 

The soft genre aesthetic remains, but a subtly gritty texture is introduced through insistent, clanging layers of percussion, while maintaining a very feminine, pastel sound palette overall. 

In the song Trash, Sakura draws parallels between cycles of material consumption and our interactions in relationships, and as human beings facing mortality. That idea is reflected in the production values, with harsher cymbals and drums compared to her last project. (Lovesick, 2018 self-release) 

A one-woman show, for this EP Sakura Daijin concentrates on the music, without the elaborate video production and choreography of the earlier release.

Time Apart [VOID_064]

Sakura Daijin – Wide Awake [VOID_064]

Papaya Lounge/Confirmation Data combines two EPs, reflecting different ideas, between both sides. The first half is a yearning for digital paradise, a playful and heady homage to the (perhaps) imaginary Papaya Lounge -- the members only club deep within a mystic grotto in a forgotten realm. 

Side B is a more reflective and moody study of breakbeats, keyboards, and underwater textures. Confirmation Data was constructed with paranoiac, end-of-the-world audio crumbs, collected from the vast cultural void of hyperconnected data transfer; and some synths here and there. 

All tracks were produced and recorded between 2015-2020.

Papaya Lounge/Confirmation Data [VOID_063]

Jonny Oso – Night Terrors [VOID_063]

Chela Una’s "Who Do You Think You Are” invokes a spirit of liberation from negative partnerships and finding your power, voice, and agency to stand up against societal norms. The track's releasing and kostic keys will get your body groovin‘ while swimming through the dark mood. 

“YDKM” is a call out to those that question your worth and shame you. The vocals echo the shivering strength developed through the experience. The beats and bass ramp up this inner-intensity, while the wobbling rhythms and waves of sound serve as a support system for the vocals. 

Malagradecidx brings two introspective moods on Side B with “Trabajar” and “Crazy.” Both reflect on the artist’s experience through confidently minimal and meditative vocal work that finds a comfortable space of solitude within Santiago Salazar’s powerful production.

Chela Una / Malagradecidx [VOID_062]

Malagradrecidx – Crazy [VOID_062]

Chela Una – YDKM [VOID_062]

"703 is an area code in Northern Virginia covering parts of Arlington County. A shiny Pokémon is distinguished by a rare altered coloration and a brief sparkling effect. Reflective, hi-visibility safety clothing became popular in early rave scenes. Shine Operator is an album of 7 tracks recorded in 2015 on a Korg ESX-1."

(703) 863-4357 - TOXON [VOID_035]

Fish Narc - Eternity 777 [Void_037]

"Lyse is an album I made in the summer of 2016, but it feels like the winter to me now. I like to say it like “lice.” The music in the album seems dented all over to me. When I listen to it I think about: DVD menus and trailers for movies I’ve never seen. Listening to jumpstyle in the car with a seatbelt on. Getting angry in the basement playing a video game. It’s surface tension and pin pricks, a habit-ridden rush. 

7038634357 is my phone number. I like thinking that the number wriggles out of the grasp of something like ownership, though: I don’t own it and it’s not really mine. I started using the number for things because I always liked typing on a number pad better. I felt fast—like I was really fitting my hand into something. It also worked in my head for music, because it didn’t feel deceptive as an alias. I didn’t feel like I could hide my identity as a white kid making dance music. The number felt very personal, but not permanent or essential. The funny part to me was thinking about how anyone who listened to the music and who had access to a phone had a way to contact me about it, if they wanted. Let me know what they thought, check in on me. I guess it’s a kind of failure in that way. if people use it, it’s just to see if it’s real, to ask me if it’s real. I think it’s definitely real."

Lyse

(703) 863-4357 - Freezing [VOID_045]

"Chelauna is an artist out of La Puente, California. Her stylized vocals come from an array of influences ranging from Heavy Metal, Techno, Freestyle to Jazz, Soul oldies and Cumbias. 

In 2002 she moved to Detroit to work for Mad Mike at Submerge Distribution, taking in the massive influential sounds that would impact her style today. While at Submerge, she worked with Gerald Mitchell to record with Los Hermanos, On Another Level Album and soon after would become the voice of LH as they launched their 2004 live band tour. She continued work on a remix by S2 for the track Jack Frost on the Human Race Nation label in 2009."

Production by Seldom Seen 
Co-production by Popcorn 
Mastered by David Flores
Pastel Voids F/W 16/17

Serotonin Flux [Void_046]

Serotonin Flux

Chela Una - Where's The Good [VOID_046]

"My own loss of Chinese and estrangement from my blood shouldn’t be hidden, and the translations aren’t all correct. 

Baojiaxiang is the street that my family lives on. It is a homonym to a system of community enforcement, of looking out for one another. To me in writing it looks like “to hold the home alley.” My mother always told me that there’s nothing more important than what others think of you. I never asked her if she knew about this similarity. 

The orchestra of the frozen state is the machine, my laptop. It belongs to my past in my estrangement as well as the functions of this estrangement, with what little money my mother had that she spent on my classical training. More often than most kids in the hood I found myself in a suit, on a stage, in front of a bunch of rich people. Now more often than not I find myself longing to be there again, a component of a larger system that I could blindly spew my technique into without regard to its meaning. 

I made this tape because I don’t know who I am. I understand that this is a common problem, and that most people solve it by looking into their pasts, or connecting with their family, or something. None of these are viable, or possible really. I don’t believe I was ever meant to become a doctor and support family. I can’t see myself moving weight from one city in Arizona to another. I fucked up my voice with smoking so I can’t sing in choir anymore. 

So I took all of that piano knowledge and made something that sounds a little bit more like all the people around me. I want to thank all of my friends for holding me up along the way. I want to thank Los Angeles for giving me this gift of confidence in a lush, dissonant sound. I want to thank every dead white man for writing music that helped me become better than all their sons. I will thank China when I finally go home."

Orchestra of the Frozen State [冰国乐队]

Download

bod [包家巷] - SIDE_A Excerpt [VOID_047]

Metropol x (703) 863-4357 - Specters of Vasari [VOID_050]

“Ayni” is a defining concept of mutual reciprocity in the Andean understanding of community. While using the idea as a call to unity and indiscriminate support in the NYC dance community, Buzzi continues to show his growth as a Bushwick born and bred techno producer. 'Thermal' and 'Protection' are the prime time tracks, belting out carefully placed percussive elements in a narrative style the producer cultivated while studying the masters who came before him. 'Second Article' holds its ground with a relentless Detroit-inspired beat and steady melody.

Written, Recorded and Mixed by Jose Buzzi 
Mastered By Charlie Perez-Tlatenchi

Out on Pastel Voids 02.23.2018

Ayni [Void_053]

Ayni

Buzzi - Thermal [VOID_053]

"There's something like a piece of rubber stuck between these six - you know, one of those dried up shreds from a blown out semi-truck bearing down towards the horizon on the interstate. Dust Sucker. Gas Guzzler. I'm digging around trying to pick it out, remembering how the sidewalk would burn every part of you when you were a kid. This sun really does fuck with your head, bleaching out everything so that you just see a white heat bloom dotted with pockets of deep, bleeding shade. Western chiaroscuro, the original just capsized. A wrong copy. Anyways, like I was saying - the sleaze and rot is all up in there too, just like the rubber scraps stuffed up in the corners, from Saints and Sinners all the way down to Donna on 4th St. Driving as far out on Southern until it turned into dirt. Lawless, estranged worlds always just a few short steps from pavement. I can't tell you how many times I've driven that state road up north thinking we were toeing the lip of something horrible. Out there you get the creeps even when the headlights are on, even when the moon is bright. Shapes changing is a real possibility out west, it's not what the WPA or Baumann saw, but i think it is what Patrociño saw. You never know what you might run into out there in the hills or on the mesa, even if you can still see the city lights."

Written, Recorded and Mixed by Santiago Leyba 
Mastered By Devin Ronneberg

Out on Pastel Voids 04.06.2018

Española Nights [Void_056]

Española Nights

Western Versions - West Side Lights [VOID_056]

A note from Jonny Oso: 

“Hello, world. I’ve spent the last few years trying to capture some pretty complicated and somewhat abstract subject matter in sonic form. The culmination of such exercises eventually lead to a body of work near and dear to my heart that I call Digital Mystical. Exploring themes of technology induced loneliness, psychic phenomena, internet spy paranoia, and parallel worlds- Digital Mystical is the rhythmic expression of a self proclaimed spiritual futurist, living in the poisonous dust of the last vestiges of civilization.”

Digital Mystical [Void_057]

Free Download

Jonny Oso - 2Stressed 2B Blessed [VOID_057]

Unable to see 
When in doubt 
When you are drowning 
When you are at the bottom 
See Through 

The Atlantic Perpetuators have an unrecognized effect on people´s lives. Arody, Edwin Rivera, Sixtolo, Tony Tun Tun and many others have perpetuated their work through atlantic lives and influenced our way of understanding different forms of art and living life. Their cultural impact will never be recognized because of the nature of their art.

See Through [Void_058]

Louis Me - Deep Blue Hesi [VOID_058]

这是故事开始的地方。在威望的定义实例。从苦难到幸福。这些是我们心中难以忘怀的时刻。通过希望我们找到了斗争。通过斗争，我们找到了希望。这些是我们握在手中的小时刻。从欢乐到痛苦。在关闭和开启一时的命运的无限循环中。这是故事结束的地方。

该水我抱在我手 [Void_059]

W¯¯ - 领域不是这样的 [VOID_059]

Void Opening – 01 – Dreaming Of Gridlock

我們買ORO – 05 – …ELHORIZONTE

Pastel Voids
Est. Summer 2013, 
New York City, NY
pastelvoids@gmail.com

Pastel Voids

Popular tracks