New Releases
- This Bliss (Album)
- Steiner im Flug (Single)
- Eisbaden (Single)
- Asha (Single)
- Garden Gaia Remixes (Vinyl /Digital)
- Garden Gaia (Vinyl)
- Garden Gaia (CD)
- Garden Gaia (Digital)
This Bliss - Digital
Out: 10 May 2024
This Bliss is Pantha du Prince's second album on Dial Records from 2007 and after 11 years of digital and physical abstinence, it is now available again on the artist's own label Radiant Well!
Stylistically, the album is described as ambient techno, microhouse or even post-minimal, which also applies to the other releases on Dial Records at the time.
Pantha du Prince: "This Bliss" (Original press release from Aram Lintzel, September 2006)
At home, he is a tourist. We are talking about Hendrik Weber - DJ, producer, composer, furniture maker - who keeps on exploring new worlds of sound under his pseudonyms Panthel, Glühen or as bassist of Hamburg-based group Stella. And finally again under Pantha du Prince.
After remixes for Depeche Mode or phantom/ghost and releases of "two of this summer's most wonderful hits" (according to a review written by bleed in de:bug magazine on "Lichten/Walden"), his new album is out now: here is "This Bliss" - a record that again acts both at the heart and at the boundaries of House and Techno music. It was produced here and elsewhere, on trips, while visiting friends, on the train, the airplane or when travelling between Hamburg, Berlin, New York and an old Parisian monastery.
Expressed in terms of the currently popular discourse jargon: Pantha du Prince's second album after "Diamond Daze" (2004) can rightly be called "nomadic" as the final product reflects the mobile production situation.
The bunker images in the booklet, taken from Paul Virilio's book " Bunker Archeology", may give a wrong impression. In fact, "This Bliss" has nothing at all to do with a bunker. As usual, invasions and emissions are welcome and appreciated. Pantha du Prince deliberately employs ambiguity to blur the lines between technology and communication, thus keeping the heart of "This Bliss" constantly in motion and producing either centrifugal or pulling forces according to the ambience and conditions. Moments of peace and tranquility are hard to find, even if the bass drum is not the boss anymore.
"This Bliss" sounds like a trip to the end of the world (and the night); the sound bites either ramify in dreamy ornaments or disperse in glittering sound sparks (obviously, a spooky stalactite cave served as the perfect sound model for this sophisticated work).
Also inspired by esoteric minimalist Wim Mertens, Pantha du Prince has managed to pull out all the stops when it comes to beauty. Ornament as a promise then? Well, sometimes, but somehow, these vagabonding fragments manage to catch the decisive moment and concentrate into precarious intensities.
The sophisticated and minimal track "Moonstruck", a homage to Terry Riley, is definitely a club track. However, we must not forget that for the traveller "Departure" always means saying goodbye. Despite of the hit tunes and the clear destinations (Detroit, Moodymann, Minimal, Acid or the smooth and smashing track), the read thread that seems to hermetically hold "This Bliss" album together is the mood of rigid melancholy inherent in each track. "Walden II" and its displayed inwardness sounds like a lecture in negative dialectics for the club. What a promising yet at the same time doubting emphasis: a fragile and ambiguous flow is constantly threatened with disappearance. A track on "This Bliss" is programatically entitled "White out": instead of using fade-outs like on "Diamond Daze", cross-fading and overexposure techniques were used to create a feverish, flickering atmosphere. There is too much light on this white, flat land; everything becomes nothing, like in the absence of light.
In this striking glariness, outlines become blurry, seem to dissolve, and indistinct become heaven and hell. "Black out" / "White out" - where is the difference? In this uberbrightness, each movement freezes into a speedy standstill. For Pantha du Prince, this freezing offers both, romantic as well as conceptual qualities: an inward hallucination develops in reverse order - at midday, and not at midnight.
There is neither difference, nor any precise instructions: "Silent War" is how Hendrik Weber describes the zone where chaos and order, war and peace, silence and noise merge together. The track "Eisbaden" is more a movie soundtrack that accompanies this disorienting experience for body and mind.
For "Steiner im Flug", a will-o'-the-wisping homage to Werner Herzog's movie on the bizarre ski jumper Steiner, Pantha du Prince used microscopic micro elements from the soundtrack by composer Popol Vuh. "Seeds of Sleep" tries to blur the limits between the sound concepts of Neu! and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.
Will all this knowledge on private mythologies really help find your way in the crystal worlds of Pantha du Prince? Knowledge does not always mean power and beauty cannot be summarized. But the moment cognition stops, everything else will start.
Garden Gaia Remixes - 2 Vinyl Edition
Out: 24 Nov 2023
Double vinyl,
Tracklisting:
LP1 A
Tracklisting:
LP1 A
- Alles fühlt - (Stefan Goldmann Remix)
- Mond Vogel - (Pantha du Prince)
- Mother Drum - (Sebastian Mullaert’s Holds The Sky Mix)
- Heaven Is Where You Are- (Fejká Remix)
- Crystal Volcano - (Chloé Remix)
- Heaven Is Where You Are - (Dave DK Remix)
- Liquid Lights - (Deakin of Animal Collective Remix)
- Start a New Life - (Kuniyuki Takahashi Remix)
- Mother Drum - (Sebastian Mullaert’s Tape Hibernation)
Garden Gaia - CD
Out: 26 Aug 2022
Digisleeve
Tracklist:
Tracklist:
- 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
Live
2024
-
04 Oct 2024 +Hamburg Uebel & Gefärhlich / PalmenfestLive with PANTHA DU PRINCE, AFAR, CONIC ROSE, KAI SCHUMACHER, SOFT LOFT, STIMMING, SVANBORG KARDYB + super secret Special Guest
About
Pantha du Prince
Hendrik Weber, better known as Pantha du Prince, Panthel or Glühen 4, was born in 1975 in Bad Wildungen, often referred to as the region's “Siberia”.
Weber, already a successful composer, producer and conceptual artist, published his debut album as Pantha du Prince entitled “nowhere”, in 2002. A few years later his first Studio album “Diamond Daze” (2004) appeared, followed by a Remix-12" (“Butterfly Girl Versions”, 2005), as well as new material (“Lichten/Walden”, 2006). His second studio album as Pantha du Prince was “This Bliss,” (2007), which generated great interest among critics.
In 2010 he presented his third album "Black Noise" via London's legendary Rough Trade Records.
The label's founder, Geoff Travis personally introduced him to the English independent music institution, which has published many celebrated albums since its founding in the late 1970s. “Black Noise” with its digitalized, natural sounds of rustling and bells, is already considered a classic of its genre. For this phenomenal album, Weber was awarded with the distinguished German music award “Echo” in Berlin in 2011.
As Pantha du Prince & The Bell Laboratory Weber was joined by the Norwegian composer Lars Petter Hagen. Together, they developed a modern musical piece in Oslo and Berlin in 2010. On “The Bell Laboratory,” Weber and Hagen explore the soundscape of bells and melodic percussion, both rhythmically and tonally. The percussion piece is composed for a 64 bell carillon, to be accompanied by a six-person ensemble. The world premiere of this piece was celebrated enthusiastically in August 2011 at the Oya Festival in Oslo.
In May 2012, Weber presented his new project “Ursprung”, created together with Stephan Abry (who played with the artist Kai Althoff in the Kraut-Elektronika-Group “Workshop”). This project was performed live on-stage by a performance group. In 2015, Weber toured and performed with a new band-project called “The Triad”. He collaborated with old time friends and musicians Joachim Schütz, Stephan Abry, Scott Mou, Bendik Hovik Kjeldsberg, Kassian Troyer, and Thilo Kuhn, working in a different constellation of three musicians for each track. Rather than monopolizing control over the project like so many producers and DJs, Weber allowed himself to rely on improvisation and empathy and embraced an inevitably time-consuming production process. The album came out in three different versions, the regular album, an ambient version (both via Rough Trade) and an additional remix version via Recondite’s Plangent Rec.
In September 2017, he collaborated with classical composer Arash Safaian on a remix project called “Überbach”, composed after two canons by the great Johann Sebastian Bach.
At the same time he began to work on his concept of “Conference of Trees”. The premiere took place in Hamburg on August 13th 2018. On “Conference of Trees”, Weber presents a unique combination of electronic music and traditional instruments as he explores and interprets the communication of trees and, based on this exploration, creates a phenomenal sound concept. Some of the sound sources and Instruments were crafted by himself. It’s a breakthrough recording of experimental music, visual poetry, club culture and speculative science. The album is set for release in 2019 via Modern Recordings / BMG.
429 Hertz - Formen von Stille is Pantha Du Prince's first release under his own name, Hendrik Weber. The essence is drawn from the acclaimed album "Conference of Trees", which was released at the beginning of 2020. "429 Hertz - Forms of Silence" was created with acoustic instruments played live. They are bright patterns of frequencies and spectra, a flowing play of overtones on a far-reaching fundamental: constant 429 hertz. Hendrik Weber describes this music as maximum meditation and minimal manipulation, because when the fundamental vibration slows down, in the music as well as in the body, healing ultimately occurs. Music for meditation, for slowing down and for the inner healing process: Harmony.
Since 2012, a decade ago, Hendrik Weber alias Pantha du Prince has dedicated himself to an über-project that has long outshone all his other releases and reached a provisional artistic climax with Garden Gaia (released in August 2022 on Modern Recordings), which is dedicated to the theme of "man as nature".
The music released translates formative processes in nature into vibrating sound poetry that mediates between techno and avantgarde echoes. On the remix album of the same name (Nov.2023 via Modern 'Recordings), Weber (again) invites to make music and experiment together. Garden Gaia Remixes contains 9 remixes by Deakin from the group Animal Collective, Kuniyuki Takahashi from Sapporo, Sebastian Mullaert, Dave DK, Féjka, Stefan Goldmann and Chloé (Thévenin).
Weber, already a successful composer, producer and conceptual artist, published his debut album as Pantha du Prince entitled “nowhere”, in 2002. A few years later his first Studio album “Diamond Daze” (2004) appeared, followed by a Remix-12" (“Butterfly Girl Versions”, 2005), as well as new material (“Lichten/Walden”, 2006). His second studio album as Pantha du Prince was “This Bliss,” (2007), which generated great interest among critics.
In 2010 he presented his third album "Black Noise" via London's legendary Rough Trade Records.
The label's founder, Geoff Travis personally introduced him to the English independent music institution, which has published many celebrated albums since its founding in the late 1970s. “Black Noise” with its digitalized, natural sounds of rustling and bells, is already considered a classic of its genre. For this phenomenal album, Weber was awarded with the distinguished German music award “Echo” in Berlin in 2011.
As Pantha du Prince & The Bell Laboratory Weber was joined by the Norwegian composer Lars Petter Hagen. Together, they developed a modern musical piece in Oslo and Berlin in 2010. On “The Bell Laboratory,” Weber and Hagen explore the soundscape of bells and melodic percussion, both rhythmically and tonally. The percussion piece is composed for a 64 bell carillon, to be accompanied by a six-person ensemble. The world premiere of this piece was celebrated enthusiastically in August 2011 at the Oya Festival in Oslo.
In May 2012, Weber presented his new project “Ursprung”, created together with Stephan Abry (who played with the artist Kai Althoff in the Kraut-Elektronika-Group “Workshop”). This project was performed live on-stage by a performance group. In 2015, Weber toured and performed with a new band-project called “The Triad”. He collaborated with old time friends and musicians Joachim Schütz, Stephan Abry, Scott Mou, Bendik Hovik Kjeldsberg, Kassian Troyer, and Thilo Kuhn, working in a different constellation of three musicians for each track. Rather than monopolizing control over the project like so many producers and DJs, Weber allowed himself to rely on improvisation and empathy and embraced an inevitably time-consuming production process. The album came out in three different versions, the regular album, an ambient version (both via Rough Trade) and an additional remix version via Recondite’s Plangent Rec.
In September 2017, he collaborated with classical composer Arash Safaian on a remix project called “Überbach”, composed after two canons by the great Johann Sebastian Bach.
At the same time he began to work on his concept of “Conference of Trees”. The premiere took place in Hamburg on August 13th 2018. On “Conference of Trees”, Weber presents a unique combination of electronic music and traditional instruments as he explores and interprets the communication of trees and, based on this exploration, creates a phenomenal sound concept. Some of the sound sources and Instruments were crafted by himself. It’s a breakthrough recording of experimental music, visual poetry, club culture and speculative science. The album is set for release in 2019 via Modern Recordings / BMG.
429 Hertz - Formen von Stille is Pantha Du Prince's first release under his own name, Hendrik Weber. The essence is drawn from the acclaimed album "Conference of Trees", which was released at the beginning of 2020. "429 Hertz - Forms of Silence" was created with acoustic instruments played live. They are bright patterns of frequencies and spectra, a flowing play of overtones on a far-reaching fundamental: constant 429 hertz. Hendrik Weber describes this music as maximum meditation and minimal manipulation, because when the fundamental vibration slows down, in the music as well as in the body, healing ultimately occurs. Music for meditation, for slowing down and for the inner healing process: Harmony.
Since 2012, a decade ago, Hendrik Weber alias Pantha du Prince has dedicated himself to an über-project that has long outshone all his other releases and reached a provisional artistic climax with Garden Gaia (released in August 2022 on Modern Recordings), which is dedicated to the theme of "man as nature".
The music released translates formative processes in nature into vibrating sound poetry that mediates between techno and avantgarde echoes. On the remix album of the same name (Nov.2023 via Modern 'Recordings), Weber (again) invites to make music and experiment together. Garden Gaia Remixes contains 9 remixes by Deakin from the group Animal Collective, Kuniyuki Takahashi from Sapporo, Sebastian Mullaert, Dave DK, Féjka, Stefan Goldmann and Chloé (Thévenin).