Pantha du Prince - Glühen 4
Pantha du Prince: Back to Bliss - English / German
Hendrik Weber not only crafts delightful techno, but also turns a beautiful phrase. As Pantha du Prince, he is to blame for the proliferation of classical sets in techno clubs. Or, to be precise: their spirit.
Techno has gone through quite a few changes over its two decades of testing this aesthetic on the world’s major and minor dancefloors. More often than not, it was mash-ups with other genres that helped to keep techno in the news. So, when a producer – after bleep techno, bagpipe techno, smurf techno and disco sample techno – decides to layer an expansive string composition from the relatively young repertoire of modern classical music onto a rather stern, functional four:four base, one might conclude: ah, classical techno, another gimmick. Hendrik Weber, however, the mind and man behind this work, the one who underscored a piece by British miniaturist Howard Skempton with hard-hitting techno beats, could not be any less gimmick-driven. His particular expertise lies in the creation of haunting, ethereal and lastingly unsettling moments. And there are plenty of those to be found on “Saturn Strobe,” his seven-and-a-half minutes of floating, string-driven classical bliss, as well as the entire new Pantha du Prince album.
In other words: Hendrik Weber is a refined mind and connoisseur. His subtle sophistication becomes especially apparent in the careful layering of different, echoing strands taken from the original recording until – after many iterations – the gossamer result replaces one of Britain’s most famous orchestras with the mere ‘spirit’ of its own sound. Another facet of Weber’s considered sensibility: he does not simply prattle on, high on his own self-importance, when asked to explain his amazingly accomplished new album “This Bliss”. On the contrary: Weber, who likes to hide his public face behind an outsize fringe for press shots, as if he didn’t quite want to be seen, picks his words like he chooses his sounds: with thoughtful care and plenty of elegance. Almost as an aside, he comes out with a string of delightful quotes – for example, he states that the discovery of British shoegazing sounds during his teenage years led to his “musical humanisation.”
Or take his carpentry apprenticeship at Hamburg’s State Opera House, a task he took on because “it was something truly archaic” and satisfied his quest for acquiring a skill that “his grandfathers had already mastered.” Or, sipping a glass of Riesling wine, his explanation for Pantha du Prince’s more straightforward live sets, “to function within the rules and standards of the club context,” an environment he found intriguing as a “presupposition.” “It’s always also a flirtation with dullness,” he adds. Hendrik Weber is a delight to the ears, both in his music and his own words, something few techno producers could claim.
Right now, Weber’s favourite topic appears to be bliss, i. e. the particular flavour of delight and rapture that the Hamburg-based artist – who also moonlights as a bassist for Stella – pursues and explores on his new album “This Bliss”. To him, bliss goes beyond simple fun times: it defines the immediacy, the overwhelming emotion experienced by his listeners when a previously jarring, disturbing element in a track dissolves into a sudden instant of pure beauty – the split second when the mood shifts, uncontrolled … for one brief, fleeting moment in time.
Moments like these are a commonplace in Weber’s fragmented, highly romantic oeuvre, filled with delicate gongs and chimes. They are the result of his delicate circumvention of the functional dictate of modern club music, of his generous sprinkling of disharmonic overtones, frequencies and feedback into the mix and then embracing these ‘flaws’ as an opportunity and substrate for the emergence of new moods. Even at the risk of unsettling his listeners for an ephemeral moment or two. “I recently played one of those tracks to a friend. After a few minutes he said, “this is really making me dizzy!” Weber sounds proud. “That’s exactly what I was aiming for, but also its harmonic pull. In this moment of pulling away, the track does not leave you hanging on. It always takes you back to this sensation of bliss.”
Take his mountain of darkly grumbling organs that collapse, without warning, into a radiant, high-pitched jangle to whisk you away from the club to a crystal-clear night and glittering glacier. Or take his echo loops intertwined with sacral chimes, soon to be pushed out by a new flock of bass lines. And while these moments can easily lead to joyful abandon on the dancefloor, Weber sneaks in a list of eclectic titles that leave the recipient gloriously disoriented. On “This Bliss”, he throws us off the scent with plenty of deceptive tracks, pointing into contradictory directions. While titles like “Eisbaden” (ice bath), “Urlichten” (primordial light) or “Florac” seem right at home in the nearest anthroposophical tome,“Steiner im Flug” (Steiner in the air) is a red herring – it does not pay homage to the founding father of anthroposophical thought, Rudolf Steiner, but instead references former ski jump world champion Walter Steiner. In the same vein, “Asha” might hint at esoteric endeavours, while “Walden 2” takes us straight to everyone’s favourite transcendentalist and log cabin hermit, Henry David Thoreau, who came up with the idea of civil disobedience in order to protest American imperialism – a notion that sits perfectly with Weber’s own label, Dial, run by a slew of protagonists firmly ensconced in the leftist and leftfield spectrum.
“I never work with references,” Hendrik Weber insists. Such quests for meaning would not only be completely futile, but also take us away from his own music. And this is something he does not endorse. So, it should come as no surprise that – instead of broadening the conversation to interface allocation, short-circuited discourse or discipline switches – he fends off any questions concerning his recent exhibition at Hamburg’s (in)famous Pudel Club. An exhibition not done by the musician Pantha du Prince, but by the artist Hendrik Weber. Sure, the Dial posse has extensive connections to the art scene, not least of all because one of the label’s founders, David Lieske aka Carsten Jost, has made his way in the gallery world, but also because all record covers reference works of art and due to the label’s recent showcase in the Dutch town of Den Bosch as part of an institutional exhibition. While all of this might be true, Weber himself prefers a strict division between art and music. “Dial is no arts collective. I couldn’t think of anything worse,” he declares. „It’s really important that you don’t forget this: Dial is a techno label.“
And there is nothing wrong with this answer. After all, “This Bliss” underscores Dial’s reputation as the world’s most romantic techno label. And if it also entails some odd touching classical interludes, played by eerie ghost orchestras, then this – in itself – is art enough.
Jan Kedves