Pantha du Prince - Black Noise

Pantha du Prince
Black Noise
(2010, Rough Trade)
RIYL = The Field, Pole, Burial

I’ve been excited for this one for a little while, but have delayed writing about it because I realized that I don’t have a whole lot to say. Black Noise, Pantha du Prince’s full length follow up to his best-of-the-decade This Bliss, is…incredible. I mean, it is certainly a worthy follow up to This Bliss. Even so, not a whole lot has changed. The album is easily identifiable as a Pantha du Prince album with its water droplet metronome-percussion, the crystal chiming clatter and his patent ear for infusing melody that seeps slowly from the minimalist electronics that Pantha pushes. But that doesn’t make it irrelevant or less of an album. Far from it. Black Noise is pitch perfect and, I think that I dare say, the best album I’ve heard so far this year (though Salivary Stones is really incredible as well (and we're only in February)). Pantha du Prince simply has the touch. I think the easiest thing to compare it to is Boards of Canada when they followed up Music Has The Right To Children with Geogaddi or when Stars of the Lid followed up The Tired Sounds… with And Their Refinement of the Decline. In both situations there was a complaint that the latter sounded much like the former, but in the end no one was really displeased. The one bright spot of a clearly recognizable shift is on “Stick to My Side,” where Panda Bear guests with some wonderful Person Pitch-esque vocals that really work great on top of Pantha du Prince’s production (and excite me about the forth coming album from Mr. Bear). I do find it slightly humorous that Panda Bear keeps repeating the lyrics, “Why stick to the things that I’ve already tried.” While the repeated lyrics may be a standard that Panda Bear himself has embraced in his solo work and work with Animal Collective, the same doesn’t quite ring true with Pantha du Prince. Regardless, the album is immaculate. Absolutely wondrous really. I am actually surprised that it hasn’t seen more reviews so far (I’ve only noticed one, though I’m sure there are more). I mean it was just officially released yesterday so I’m sure they are coming. I will just leave it to the rest of the collective web of musical criticism to praise the album for me. Just wait, I promise, Black Noise is going to be a hit.

-Thistle

This actually comes as a remix b-side for Animal Collective's "Peacebone" single, but it is a worthy precursor to Panda's appearance on Black Noise:

80.

Pantha Du Prince
This Bliss
(Dial, 2007)

As far as minimalist, beat driven electronic music is concerned, This Bliss can’t be beat (and yes, that includes my thoughts on The Field’s From Here We Go Sublime). Such a beautiful, slow building album. There is an incredible amount of warmth here for all the inorganic wiring that produced it. And how he embedded the whole album with an undercurrent of understated optimism is beyond me. You simply can’t listen to it without feeling good about life. Perfect for headphones, This Bliss is bliss indeed.

-Thistle

Pantha du Prince - This Bliss

Pantha du Prince
This Bliss
(2007, Dial)
8.5/10.0

I always thought micro-house and IDM (intelligent dance music) were somewhat humorous genre titles with their miniature dance moves and fluttering electroencephalographic (I'm learning new words today! This one references the "neurophysiologic" measurement of the electrical activity of the brain!! Just trying to be the intelligent dance connoisseur the genre implies) increases respectively. 2007 seems to be the critical coming out party for the intertwined genres in indiedom. With The Field's From Here We Go Sublime raking in the highest metacritic score of any album so far this year along with similarly positive remarks laid for both Pole's Steingarten and the very subject of this review, Pantha du Prince's This Bliss, hipsters are beginning to think they are even smarter than the coffee shops that house them. Well count me as not being fully converted but pleasantly intrigued and willing to experiment. The stickiness of this area of music is in making previously unavoidably booty shaking music from the clubs fit tidily inside a city flat. It is turning the obnoxiously overpowering into the restrained minimalistic and doing so while venturing, repetitively, far beyond pop-lengthed songs. I am not sure on the winning album of the three records I have previous mentioned (as they will all be getting their fair spin) but Pantha du Prince’s This Bliss is definitely the current front runner. The album has been the quickest (which isn’t to say that the process was quick) to reveal itself as more than some bored exhaustion of beats and synths or even more than a simply above average electronic album. This Bliss requires relaxation, because without it the subtle gold lining on these tracks would be buried and unsalvageable. Contending against this record with tense criticism will produce a strained and bitter confusion. It is as if This Bliss can judge your character and knows whether you have let down all guards and are willing to submit honestly to its spells. Meticulously constructed, as This Bliss moves from track to track and you become lulled into its world. The songs begin to pour forth caves of musical gems. If you're still unconvinced here is the real tell-tell sign: every successive listen has been better than the last; more intricate, more charming, more enchanting; it has become absolutely stunning to behold.

-Mr. Thistle

Pantha du Prince - "Moonstruck"