PAN + ParkingStone

L'Esprit de Nyege 2020

Stasix [L'Esprit de Nyege 2020]

Evita Manji - Body/Prison
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 136S
Format: DL
Release Date: 05 December 2022
Purchase: PAN.lnk.to/Body_Prison

'Body/Prison' the first single of Evita Manji's forthcoming debut album 'Spandrel?' is out now.

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
Mix: Evita Manji
Master: Enyang Urbiks
Artwork: Spyros Droussiotis

Spandrel?

Evita Manji - Body/Prison (PAN 136S)

Honour - BEG 4 MERCY
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 122
Release Date: 09 December 2022
Purchase: PAN.lnk.to/BEG4MERCY

There's not much we can say about Honour that makes complete sense. They may or may not have grown up in the US, making beats with a cousin who sang in a church band; they might have toured as a roadie with platinum-selling R&B outfit Pretty Ricky before acing regional videogame tournaments and moving to NYC; they could have sold their life story to children's book author C.S. Adler and signed to Violator management; and maybe they ended up stationed in London, working as a runner on music promos. But however plausible it is, the breadcrumb trail provides us with a detailed cultural framework for "Beg 4 Mercy", a dense fog of pop and underground references that's as inescapable as it is enticing. It's a rare debut that engulfs even the most cautious listener, sweeping through tongue-in-cheek Wild West bravado and psychedelic, overdriven club rap, bifurcating into crumbly DIY noise and vaporous euphoric soul. Sometimes barbed and cynical, but just as often deliriously warm-hearted, it's a record of contradictions that's as puzzling to unpick as the artist's baffling backstory, imprinted with more hidden messages than a Renaissance painting. Who needs to play identity bingo when the art's screaming so loudly?

Production, writing, and composition by Honour
Additional production on SEVEN SEALS by Bridegroom
Poem on 2Yung2Die written and recited by Gwendolyn Brooks
Mastered by Miles Whittaker

BEG 4 MERCY mp3

Honour - 2Yung2Die (Moon Mix) (PAN 122)

Entrancing

Larung

Tzusing - 绿帽 Green Hat
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 123
Release Date: 31 March 2023
Purchase: PAN.lnk.to/GreenHat

Mastered by Enyang Urbiks
Mixed by Jondu
Cover photography by Xiaopeng
Artwork by Virgile Flores

绿帽 Green Hat

Tzusing - Balkanize (PAN 123)

Marina Herlop - Nekkuja
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 141
Release Date: 27 October 2023
Purchase: pan.lnk.to/Nekkuja

While she was waiting for her last album 'Pripyat' to be released, Catalan composer and producer Marina Herlop was restless. She was concerned about her (by then) uncertain music career, and felt emotionally unmoored. "Some days I used to sit on the balcony of my flat to catch some sun,” she explains, "I would close my eyes and start visualizing myself as a gardener, pulling out purple weeds from the soil, every bad memory or emotion I wanted to expulse being one of the plants." As the days dragged on, the fantasy deepened, and Herlop discovered that parts of the garden was withering; the energy she had been putting into the non-musical side of her life had seeped into her creative pasture and poisoned it. She knew what she needed to do to overcome the blight: plant some seeds and tend to her art to help it blossom and bloom once again.

'Nekkuja' is a place for Herlop's warmest, sweetest sentiments to rise to the surface and crack through the topsoil. She describes the record as a way for her to seek and affirm inner light, and it's undoubtedly her brightest, poppiest statement to date. The forward-thinking, experimental touches that nourished 'Pripyat' are still present, but blessed with a level of positivity that's rare to find in a scene so entranced by darkness and melancholy. Skittering fragments of ornate acoustic instrumentation provide a serene welcome to 'Busa', punctuated by precise electronic processes that shuttle the sound towards abstraction and fantasy. Herlop's voice grows over the tangle of sounds from a childish giggle into a layered, matted mantra, sounding passionate, hopeful and full of energy. The vitality spills over into 'Cosset', where she wraps powerful motifs around ricocheting beats and dramatic piano rolls.

Herlop's garden opens up dramatically on 'Karada' when bucolic field recordings crack like sunlight over harp plucks and willowy vocals. Her voice seems to bend around the whooshing streams and chittering of birds as if she's singing to the manicured land itself - a utopian paradise that Herlop employs as a metaphor for the creative process. In contrast to the view that an artist is an isolated genius or an idol to be worshipped, Herlop believes that the garden helps us see the process as closer to devotion or perseverance. A gardener brings order to the wild chaos of the outdoors, collaborating with nature to arrange something vibrant and enduring. Blending familiar sounds with fanciful concepts, Herlop traces an imaginary garden, imploring us to wander and wonder. And by the album's billowing final track 'Babel', it's flowered into a flush of pruned vocal phrases and delicately groomed orchestral rushes, painted in orange, green, blue and red.

Composed, produced and recorded by Marina Herlop
Vocals by Marina Herlop
Mixed and mastered by Joker
Artwork by Mati Klarewin

Marina Herlop - Cosset (PAN 141)

Amnesia Scanner & Freeka Tet - Over
Label: PAN
Cat.No.: PAN 148S
Release Date: 17 July 2024
Purchase: pan.lnk.to/Over

Amnesia Scanner drops a schitzo pop anthem to celebrate the neverending cycle of us being so back – it being so over; boom vs doom; hyperoptimism vs hyperpessimism.

Freeka Tet also interprets, or cancels, Amnesia Scanner’s original on FT Over, where an active noise cancelation script reveals a hidden dimension of lowercase ambient sublime.

Written and produced by Amnesia Scanner
Mixed by Amnesia Scanner
Additional mixing by Enyang Urbiks
Mastered by Enyang Urbiks

Amnesia Scanner - AS Over

Written by Harold Kuenyefu
Produced by MRWIZE
Mastering by Lorenzo Targhetta
Cover by Raphaël Moreira Gonçalves

MRWIZE - fFreak

Written by Felix Lee
Produced by Felix Lee
Mastering by Lorenzo Targhetta
Cover by Raphaël Moreira Gonçalves

Felix Lee - Skattybeng III

Amnesia Scanner & Bill Kouligas
Format: LP / Digital
Cat.No: PAN 83
Release Date: 5 April 2019
Buy: https://bit.ly/2OMcSsJ / https://bit.ly/2UivhmG

Lexachast is an ongoing collaborative work by Amnesia Scanner, Bill Kouligas & Harm van den Dorpel.

Initially birthed as a joint, improvised performance between Amnesia Scanner and Kouligas at the ICA, London in 2015, it was later recreated and extended with visual artist van den Dorpel into a 15-minute online-only audiovisual work – known simply as Lexachast.

Since then, it has expanded into a live show that has been performed at Transmediale, CTM Festival, Unsound Krakow & Adelaide, Next and LEV Festival and during Paris Fashion Week in collaboration with the brand Ottolinger. Now to be released on PAN, is a new document of Lexachast in its current, full-grown form.

Whilst broadly inspired by the experience derived from and exposure to algorithmic patterns as generated by visual artist Harm van den Dorpel’s specially-devised program, the work is a sonic reference to the fallouts of avant-EDM and cyberdrone. This in turn is simultaneously mirrored by the perturbing visuals, created by a unique algorithm that sources and blends various filtered imagery from DeviantArt and Flickr in real time – with a bias towards the NSFW, extreme banality, and ornamental melancholia. The results were a perfect fit for the deliberate intention of non-intent, an anti-video of sorts, which ended up as a defining element for the project.

The artwork is created with Harm van den Dorpel’s ever-evolving, image-sourcing algorithm and it is mastered by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin

Lexachast

Amnesia Scanner & Bill Kouligas - Lexachast II (PAN 83)

Dandelion1 is the first chapter of a triple compilation of 51 tracks. These 3 x 17 artists from this mega release have all performed at the previous editions of ParkingStone from october 2015 to june 2019.
Tracklist chapter one: 01. Ange Halliwell - Luciole | 02. Abyss X - Hair Full Of Secrets | 03. Chino Amobi - PARIS 8 | 04. IVVVO - Murderers (John Frusciante) | 05. Ziur - What Is This | 06. CORIN - lac | 07. Paul Marmota - Telepathy | 08. Torus - 23 | 09. My Sword - Titan | 10. Eterna - Call Her | 11. Imaabs - Abus | 12. In My Talons - Schoolyard Fight | 13. Baby Blue - 0d | 14. Crystallmess - Gentle Battle | 15. Kilbourne - Cucumber | 16. Allpass - K Hopper | 17. TYGAPAW - Sweet Surrender 2.0 ft. Precious Okoyomon.
Mastering by Lorenzo Targhetta.
Cover by Stephen Mayer.
Special Thks to Vecteur Dissident, Claude Emmanuelle & Leila.

Dandelion1

Crystallmess - Gentle Battle

IVVVO - Murderers (John Frusciante)

Whities 027

Turbo Olé

Ultra

New @parkingstone compilation: BLIST
01. piano princess - all the time
02. Meuko! Meuko! - none (live recording)
03. Deli Girls - SILENCE
04. Nkisi - phantasia
05. IDKLANG - Self-Optimize Pt. I The Mirror
06. INSIN - Kali Phos
07. Khadije - Ms. Thinking
08. Lizzitsky - Gum Massacre (C-Gen Mix)
09. Osheyack - Obfuscate ft. Jordan Tierney
10. Gabber Modus Operandi - Banci
11. Tati au Miel - Clairvoyance
12. Summer Satana - Mutation needs violence
13. ENDGAME - DRAINED
14. Van Boom & Oldyungmayn - 20965
15. whiterose - h'X
16. HDMIRROR - RE-ENTRY
17. Gabber Eleganza - Bonjour Travelers
Cover: Joe Pascale
Mastering: Lorenzo Targhetta

Lizzitsky - Gum Massacre (C - Gen Mix)

New @parkingstone compilation: BLIST
01. piano princess - all the time
02. Meuko! Meuko! - none (live recording)
03. Deli Girls - SILENCE
04. Nkisi - phantasia
05. IDKLANG - Self-Optimize Pt. I The Mirror
06. INSIN - Kali Phos
07. Khadije - Ms. Thinking
08. Lizzitsky - Gum Massacre (C-Gen Mix)
09. Osheyack - Obfuscate ft. Jordan Tierney
10. Gabber Modus Operandi - Banci
11. Tati au Miel - Clairvoyance
12. Summer Satana - Mutation needs violence
13. ENDGAME - DRAINED
14. Van Boom & Oldyungmayn - 20965
15. whiterose - h'X
16. HDMIRROR - RE-ENTRY
17. Gabber Eleganza - Bonjour Travelers
Cover: Joe Pascale

Osheyack - Obfuscate ft. Jordan Tierney

ENDGAME - DRAINED

HDMIRROR - RE-ENTRY

Gabber Eleganza - Bonjour Travelers

Eartheater - Phoenix: La Petite Mort Édition 
Format: DL
Cat.No. PAN 112-R
Release Date: 26 February 2021
Purchase: pan.lnk.to/LaPetiteMort

Last year, Eartheater released her latest album, Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin, via PAN.Eartheater is now sharing a fully reworked version of the album, Phoenix: La Petite Mort Édition, out February 26, 2021 on PAN. Originally conceived as a “sleep” mix for CRACK Magazine, Eartheater re-sculpted her entire album Phoenix into a seamless ambient edit.“This is Phoenix crushing, undressing, and compressing like carbon particles under the weight of boulders folded into silky soil, and decomposing. She is folding over and over and over and over like the rolls of young gummy stone. This is one REM cycle. I suggest listening to Phoenix: La Petite Mort Édition while asleep after climax. You are wet ash smudged across a pillow case.” - Eartheater

PAN + ParkingStone

janjanph