Garden Gaia is a part of Pantha du Prince’s ongoing exploration into the theme of ‘humans as nature’, a theme previously explored on his records Elements of Light (recorded with The Bell Laboratory) and 2020’s Conference of Trees.

Pantha du Prince on Garden Gaia: “There are scientists who say that we humans are ocean that’s been folded together. My music is about raising consciousness, about describing the reality of life and the lost paradise through the means of music. It’s about entering a free space and developing a maximum degree of openness and sensitivity to our bodies – to our mental states and the atmosphere that surrounds us.

It’s about mindfulness and a high level of awareness towards what’s happening around and within us. I’ve poured all of these experiences into Garden Gaia as music. And that’s to be taken in the literal sense of ‘pouring,’ since we belong to a flowing process on this planet. A tree also flows into the air, just as it’s connected to other trees beneath the ground through currents of communication. Our lungs flow into our bodies. And as embryos, we were flowing beings. The question is: to what extent can we adult humans continue to flow?”

TRACK LISTING

Open Day
Crystal Volcano
Start A New Life
Blume (bendik Hk Edit)
Mother Drum
Heaven Is Where You Are (bendik Hk Edit)
Liquid Lights
Alles Fühlt
Golden Galactic

Hendrik Weber aka Pantha Du Prince (‘a fantasy character...a poetic transporter for the concept behind the music’) has carved a niche for a style of techno he calls, ‘layered and cinematographic.’ He released the “Diamond Daze” (2004) and “This Bliss” (2007) albums on Berlin dance label Dial before signing to Rough Trade and widening his audience with “Black Noise” (2010) and “The Element of Light” (2013). On “Conference of Trees”, Pantha Du Prince explores the communication of trees and creates a sound concept based on it. What we experience here is a break through recording of experimental music, visual poetry, club culture and speculative science.

STAFF COMMENTS

Sil says: I find myself as I get older enjoying releases like this more and more. Considered, well thought out and dynamic; it tells a story from beginning to end rather than just rely on delivering peak time bangers. One for my headphones.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Approach In A Breeze
A2. Transarent Tickle Shining Glace
A3. Holding The Oak

B1. When We Talk
B2. Roots Making Family
B3. The Crown Territory

C1. Supernova Space Time Drift
C2. Silentium Larix

D1. Pius In Tacet
D2. Lichtung

Pantha Du Prince (Hendrik Weber) has been working with longtime engineer Kassian to create an ambient version of last year’s triumphant studio return, ‘The Triad’. This reworking showcases the otherworldly and moody delicacy that makes Weber’s music so absorbing and affecting; with the beats and most vocals removed, his dreamy sonic details come to the fore.

“Hendrik Weber is one of the leading figures in modern techno.” - Pitchfork • “A gift for generating heavily melodic mazes of sound.” - BBC

German techno auteur Pantha Du Prince (aka Hendrik Weber) releases ‘The Triad’, his first proper studio album since his 2010 breakthrough ‘Black Noise’ and 2013’s collaboration with The Bell Laboratory, ‘Elements Of Light’.

Of the new album’s conceptual framework Weber says, “‘Black Noise’ was very much about me being alone in a small room in Berlin and composing. ‘The Triad’ opens the structure to more human ways of interacting, not digitized ways of interacting. It’s not about Facebook; it's about meeting up and jamming. I wanted to cut through the digital dust that surrounds us.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: The tone for this whole album is set by the organically blooming electronic melodies and serene ambient sweeps of anthemic opener 'The Winter Hymn'. Nuanced and breathtaking.

Pantha du Prince's new EP 'The Winter Hymn' features the titular album cut along with the exclusive track “Post Human Palisades (feat. Bendik & Kassian)” and an extended mix of the album track “Dream Yourself Awake".

Over the course of three albums - and as an in-demand remixer of artists ranging from Animal Collective to, most recently, Philip Glass - the Berlin-based musician and producer Pantha Du Prince (Hendrik Weber) has been celebrated for pushing the envelope of electronic music.

His newest effort, ‘Elements Of Light’, a collaborative project with The Bell Laboratory, is doubtless his most ambitious to date: The work is a symphony for electronics, percussion and bell carillon, a three-tonne instrument comprising 50 bronze bells.

The genesis of the project began in Oslo in the summer of 2010, when Weber was having lunch with local curators Mattis With and Håkon Vinnogg and heard, in the distance, one of the concerts played multiple times daily on a bell carillon inside the city hall. Weber was struck by how the frequencies and overtones unfolded unpredictably, influenced one another, and resonated, more or less, throughout the Norwegian capital.

With and Vinnogg suggested he compose for the carillon, which was developed in China 3,500 years ago, during the Shang Dynasty, and made its way to Europe during the Middle Ages. Weber began collaborating with the Norwegian Lars Petter Hagen, who served as arranger and conductor. For the recording, a bell carillon was shipped from Denmark to Germany, where Vegar Sandholt, the same carillonist that Weber had heard during his stay in Oslo, played it.

A separate session, in Oslo, brought together a variety of percussionists, including Weber; Martin Horntveth of Jaga Jazzist, Killl and The National Bank; Erland Dahlen of Nils Petter Molvaer Trio, Susanne Sundfør, Madrugada, Xploding Plastix, and Kaada; the researcher and performer Håkon Stene, who teaches at the Norwegian Academy Of Music; and Heming Valebjørg, of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. They contributed numerous tubular bells, marimba, xylophone, cymbals, chimes, handclaps, finger snaps and other percussion.

The album is a single continuous work, although it has been broken down into five tracks named for elements of light: ‘Wave’, ‘Particle’, ‘Photon’, ‘Spectral Split’ and ‘Quantum’. Sonically, the work is a fusion of electronic music and classical composition, and draws on house and minimalism, jazz and new music, Gamelan and Western sacred music. Influences include John Cage, Iannis Xenakis, Steve Reich, LaMonte Young and Moondog.

‘Elements Of Light’ is a natural next step in the Pantha Du Prince oeuvre. Bells figured prominently on his last album, the highly acclaimed ‘Black Noise’, which Rough Trade released in 2010. In a Best New Music review of ‘Black Noise’, Pitchfork said “each track is its own micro sound world with enough rich detail to draw you back for deeper investigation.”

Rough Trade Records announce the release of "XI Versions Of Black Noise" by Pantha Du Prince, an album of reworkings of tracks originally on his album "Black Noise", by friends and contemporaries including, amongst others, Animal Collective, Moritz Von Oswald, Four Tet, Efdemin and North American pioneer Hieroglyphic Being.

Pantha Du Prince’s "Black Noise" has been lauded as a groundbreaking, seminal album in its field. The music on "Black Noise" balances precariously on the slippery threshold between art and nature, between techno and folklore, which lends it a certain spectral and intangible aspect.