Pantha Du Prince

There are many theories about the origins of music. One such theory maintains that the first song was a lullaby for children; another, that men began to make music in order to please the women. Hendrik Weber a.k.a. Pantha du Prince does not worry about such genealogies. For music is always already there, even without humans. On his new album, the producer and DJ, who lives in Berlin and Paris, claims: music slumbers in all matter; any sound, even silence, is already music. The mission, then, must be to render audible what is unheard and unheard of: black noise, a frequency that is inaudible to man. Black noise often presages natural disasters, earthquakes or floods; only some animals perceive this ?calm before the storm.? Black noise is something archaic and earthy.

Having played bass in the Hamburg-based band Stella, Hendrik Weber has plenty of indie rock experience under his belt. Influenced by electro-acoustic neo-avantgardes (Morton Subotnick, Luigi Nono), Krautrock and deep techno, he shapes a novel kind of club music that is probably best described by the term ?sonic house.? Black Noise blurs a whole number of antitheses: acoustic v. synthetic, powerful v. fragile, epic v. bashful, catchy v. mysterious. The most diverse acoustic sources and moods are folded into one another and bathed in an imposingly well-composed continuum. Pantha du Prince is still a Romantic Conceptualist. And the message we hear him murmuring: beauty is possible even after the disaster; where there was debris and noise, there shall be great art.