Pantha du Prince: This Bliss [Dial]

yeah it really is. wasn't too keen on the panda bear vocal and i like panda bear. so peeps whose mileage varies will be sure to hate it.

Can't say I enjoyed that song, but the rest of the record worked like a charm. After one listen, anyway...

i know i've said that i liked the Panda Bear track here.

but i also want to say that whenever i play that track for friend, they're really into it. they're not techno-heads, most of them, but have very good taste. so i'm wondering whether the difference is that those more 'invested' in the genre might not dig that track specifically, whereas those who might not be technofied might be really into it?

Yeah, many technofied people are most likely coming to with preconceived ideas about what it's supposed to or should sound like, idea that don't take kindly to Pandabearindiefuxxorwhatever. I'm pretty sure a lot of people are more offended by the idea of Panda Bear than his vocals themselves (case in point this thread). That said I don't actually like the vocals, but do think they'd have worked quite well if they were further buried in the mix, made more abstract/harmonic.

Woah strawman-building ahoy. Fwiw this sounds almost exactly how I expected it to sound.

I like this album, the Panda Bear vocals do get in the way a bit but they aren't terrible. It doesn't feel like the track should need vocals in the first place though.

i like this album except the panda bear song, but it doesn't really feel like it builds on this bliss in any way - it sort of reprises those sounds to satisfactory but slight-less-gorgeous effect.

I dunno, it's quite a lot darker than This Bliss.

Fwiw this sounds almost exactly how I expected it to sound.

because it's virtually indistinguishable from this bliss.

i really prefer it to this bliss and think it sounds more like diamond daze(?) but only listened to it through twice.

Fwiw this sounds almost exactly how I expected it to sound.

because it's virtually indistinguishable from this bliss.

― sir ilx-a-lot (cutty)

The cumulative effect is a bit darker than This Bliss, like Matt DC said, but no one track would be out of place on TB. A "departure", it ain't.

it doesn't have the iciness of the last one, per se, but is still pretty glassy...

The glass seems a bit cracked this time, if that makes sense.

My verdict is still out on the Panda Bear vocal track.

has this bliss showed up on any of these best-of-decade lists? because it oughta. (i imagine it'll place on the inevitable ilm poll.)

My #4.

Gorgeous but I can't find a way in, emotionally or intellectually. Sounds like stuff a decade or so ago, not the bleeding edge of nowsville.

Are you talking about This Bliss or the new one?

new one

This Bliss was 8th on FACT's decade list (http://www.factmag.com/2009/12/08/100-best-albums-of-the-decade/10/).

People who would vote for This Bliss as top 10 of the 00s: what makes it much much better than all of the emotional fragile sometimes dark microhouse released at the beginning of the decade?

I mean, I love the album, but in the same way that I love, oh, Total 7, say.

frankly I would love to hear loads more records in the same vein as This Bliss - any recs?

what makes it much much better than all of the emotional fragile sometimes dark microhouse released at the beginning of the decade?

If you have to ask...

(Which is another way of saying, "I don't know.")

My stab at it, Tim: It's all of a piece as much compositionally as sonically, so you get to really explore his sensibility, and Weber is the kind of artist for whom sensibility is all, rather than a brand identity's, bountiful though that brand identity may be. I find him hard to write about, which is clearly my limitation since what's so attractive is how sumptuous and immersive his music is; a lot of what I pick up on from that album is how completely he's showing off his facets, limited as they are in a strict sense. It's a narrower cohesion than a Total comp but it's also deeper, a portrait rather than a snapshot. Or, simpler: it really works as an album, maaaan.

(This Bliss isn't in my decade Top 10; it's 77th.)

Poke holes in this:

The postpunk/disco-rock/nu-electro axis : Sound of Silver :: Early Kompakt/microminimal : [i]This Bliss

Maybe?

I like that, even if I hesitate to fully endorse it.

My intention, I should note, is more relationship-to than culminating-in.

Yeah I guess all of that makes sense, and I do very much like the album.

I guess the thing that works even better in an "album, maaan" sense for me is mixes, and in my top 100 stuff like 'Hypercity' and 'Immer' and 'Friends' and 'Metawuffmischfelge', each of which attain that "portrait" feel while also being broader in their aims, would push out the space that would otherwise exist for single artist albums such as this. Though the vaguely similar single artist album I'd probably rep first is the MRI debut (which is rather underrated perhaps due to the existence both of 'Hypercity' and the more gregarious 'All That Glitters').

It's not merely the high poll placings though: lots of raves I've read about the album have implied some essential novelty to it, like he's doing things others haven't, whereas I'd say that really what he does is take something that's been done before quite a bit and then does it very intently. Nothing wrong with that, it's a noble aim, but I've wondered if people are hearing stuff than I'm missing.

This is what I said about dude at the time: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/10273-this-bliss/

So you found it cold. And yet...

"hope itself becomes too much to hope for in a narrative defined by decay."

This is OTM, and why it's one of my favorite records.

("Disintegration Loops" is also in my top 10, fwiw.)

Friends is my '00s No. 1.

Yeah my issue here was less "why do people like this album so much" and more "gee, if this is number 8 then you better put 'Friends' (or equiv) at number 1!"

xp Mine's Apologies to the Queen Mary, but I should have put Friends higher, considering how often I have listened to it. It's been a go-to since I got it, more than either Immer.

This is why I was careful to give my list bullets and not numbers.

Oh yeah, I agree. Was being too shorthanded above. I think here we run into the semi-conscious (when we're lucky) inner-blocking that a lot of folks have re: "real album" and fake ones like comps and mixes. I don't think it's nearly as widespread in dance (-friendly) circles as outside it, but it occurs.

(xpost to Tim)

Probably true.

It's correct to say, I think, that Pantha Du Prince has really nailed this space as an artist-aesthetic, and I could imagine lots of people warming to it for that as much as anything else.

Esp. in the context of lots of artists in vaguely similar territory going sing-songy or eclectic or moving into a totally different style on their actual artist albums (see Superpitcher, Mathias Schaffhauser, Closer Musik).

One reason the Panda Bear guest spot makes sense to me, besides (narrowly) commercially, is that Weber waited till album 3 to do it. It does seem as if the earlier the guest stars start showing up, the shorter the career.

Ok i have to ask what that Friends album is, seeing as I really like Pantha, I'd love to hear more that sounds like it.

What's makes Pantha Du Prince have more press and recognition than Lawrence, who I like much more. Until Then, Goodbye was one of my favorites from last year, as well as singles like Jill.

I'm assuming Friends is 'Triple R Friends' on Kompakt?
http://www.discogs.com/Triple-R-Friends/release/67137

Or is there another friends?

ok thanks

Jibe have you heard Lawrence's The Absence Of Blight? If you like This Bliss go find it.

Albums
Richard Davis "Details"
Lawrence "The Absence of Blight"
Pantha Du Prince "Diamond Daze"
Gringo Gringer's "Breakfast Included"
Ola Bergman's "The Satellite City"
Fairmont's "Paper Stars"
Kaito, "Special Love"
Superpitcher, "Today"
Michael Mayer, "Immer"
Tobias Thomas, "Please Please Please"
Ada, "Adaptations"

Tracks
Closer Musik's One Two Three (No Gravity)
Ada's Each and Everyone (Blindhouse)
M83's Don't Save Us From The Flames (Superpitcher Remix)
Ghost Cauldron's See What I've Become (Superpitcher Smallville remix)
Margo's La Baumette (Broker Dealer Remix)
Phantom Ghost's Perfect Lovers (Unperfect Love Mix Tobias Thomas & Superpitcher)
Nathan Fake - Outhouse
Duplex's Late Night Cycling
System 7's Big Sky City (High Rise Mix)
Phantom Ghost's Nothing Is Written (Tobias Thomas & Superpitcher Mix)
Raz O'Hara's This' A Beautiful Day (Mathias Schaffhauser Mix)
Quarks' Du Entkommst Mir Nicht (Lawrence Remix)
Chelonis R. Jones' I Don't Know
RJ Project's What Colour Is Love (Red Jerry's Monkeyhouse Mix)
Alexander Kowalski's Lock Me Up (Sascha Funke Mix)
Dennis Desantis's Promotion of Vice (Alexander Kowalski Mix)
Carsten Jost's Uccellini
Gus Gus's Remembrance (neuromantic avant la lettre)
Dextro's Do You Need Help
Extrawelt's Zu Fuss
Miss Kittin's Happy Violentine
Plastikman's I Don't Know
Villalobos's Easy Lee
Dopplereffekt's Myon-Neutrino
Laurent Garnier's Go To Sleep
GusGus' Detention
Alex Smoke's I Don't See The Point
DnTel's This is the Dream of Evan and Chan (Superpitcher Remix)

Ada's Each and Everyone (Blindhouse)
RJ Project's What Colour Is Love (Red Jerry's Monkeyhouse Mix)
Raz O'Hara's This' A Beautiful Day (Mathias Schaffhauser Mix)
Alexander Kowalski's Lock Me Up (Sascha Funke Mix)
Carsten Jost's Uccellini

Cozen, hearting you so much for these choices. Especially the RJ Project track which I've always thought was loved by no one else in the world.

@Jacob Sanders : yeah I've listened to Lawrence too. Quite like Absence of blight, not too hot on his latest one but I didn't pay it much attention. Need to listen to it a bit more before I make up my mind.

Also cowzn, thanks for this list of stuff I need to find and listen!

I think Tim's more or less right. Pantha's not doing anything new, just doing it better. I sort of view This Bliss as a picking up of where Lawrence left off with Absence of Blight type stuff (before he started doing his more contemporary stuff which I think just pales in comparison), and nailing the feeling.

I think a lot of people either forget about or disdain early 00's microhouse, to my total dismay because it's my favourite kind of music.

I'm sure if a lot of people heard friends or the stuff off cozwn's list came out today and got the proper exposure it could do serious damage(Richard Davis might even have the potential to achieve more success and crossover acclaim than Pantha I'd argue. I HAVE to find myself a copy of Details immediately).

cozzie i <3 u

The world does need more moody, Baroque Superpitcher remixes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrZUxN3-KpU

Yup.

But actually I think Pantha is different enough from most of the stuff Cozen lists, in terms of structure if nothing else. They're a lot more direct, more dancefloor-friendly. Pantha's tracks remind a lot of Plaid circa the P-Brane EP, kind of meandering around in abstract plinking before finally arriving at some cute melody for the last couple of minutes. At times it's amazing, at times the whole "let's see what's over here" approach can grate.

i agree re: plaid. anyone remember the hab "mapod" LP.

lawrence owns that techno packaged in images of dead plants thing, doesn't he?