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Pantha du Prince: prince of darkness
Танцпол · 23.08.2010
By Андрей Морозов
An interview with Hendrik Weber in the September issue of Huligan magazine
The effect of being inside Pantha du Prince's intricate labyrinth begs to be described in exclusively sentimental terms, like 'the charm of a walk through an autumn forest' or 'a detached stroll under a starry sky'. Hendrik Weber, the project's creator, really does resemble an abstractionist in love with the cosmos rather than an out-and-out apologist for straightforward minimal techno. In September the musician will visit Moscow, where he'll play a full live set as the headliner of the MIGZ festival. What should you expect from this intricately composed German?
Huligan: The music on your new record Black Noise bears little resemblance to 'black noise'. Scientifically, 'black noise' is sound from the black spectrum: it's held that people are unable to perceive these frequencies.
Pantha du Prince
: The title of my latest album is, of course, a metaphor: frequencies we can't hear, but because of which, at the same time, avalanches come down somewhere. I recorded the material for the album in a wooden house up a mountain. Then I returned to the studio in Berlin and there turned the scraps and fragments I had into tracks. The foundation of the record is nature, transformed into the music of big cities.
Huligan: Do you deliberately gravitate toward multi-layered music that combines dozens of different layers?
Pantha du Prince
: These days it seems to me that Pantha du Prince actually sounds quite simple. After all, the layers are in the sounds, while the music itself stays very simple.
Huligan: And how would you christen it using genre tags? Minimal plus folktronica?
Pantha du Prince
: Possibly the latest album sits roughly in that niche. The previous one, for instance, conveys a sense of complete urban digitisation, strained through headphones. Frankly, I don't like comparing my work to contemporary production. That is, I don't like classifying music at all — for me it's something very short-lived, passing. But if one must draw parallels, then the closest would probably be to equate my works with cinema or art installations.
Huligan: On the record there's the atmospheric track Stick To My Side, where Panda Bear sings. Have you thought about collaborating with other musicians?
Pantha du Prince
: There are plans, but in the near future I intend to get down to recording my new material and shut myself away in a studio in the south of Germany. What's special about this studio is that it's 100% analogue — no laptops, no digital hardware. For me personally this detail is of huge importance.
Huligan: Some claim there's no difference at all between analogue and software.
Pantha du Prince
: They're completely different things. It's more about the difference in physiological sensations from contact with analogue versus digital sound. However, I can say that, in the end, I do love my virtual toolkit and will keep working with it. It gives me far more possibilities for realising my most adventurous ideas.
