Pantha Du Prince
Rough Trade
(2010)

The German techno musician Hendrik Weber is well-known for drawing inspiration from shoegaze and minimalism, but the Berlin-based producer looks to nature in the form of the Swiss Alps to craft his latest record of textured sounds and haunting soundscapes. Several of the songs on Black Noise come from field recordings and improvisations from a stay near the mountains, where Weber encountered a pile of landslide debris that had buried an entire village. This interruption by nature is the thematic metaphor for the record, an earnest attempt at layering organic sounds against minimalist techno structures. The resulting sound is densely packed with bells, steel drums, industrial noises and pounding basslines. Weber’s songs morph and shift, rise and fall, like a 21^st-century Sturm und Drang composition, and the varied textures allow for both danceable and meditative listening.

Opening track “Lay in a Shimmer” begins with the revving of engines and the din of a crowd as bells and synths build up and pattern themselves like soft chimes against the wind. The sound is nocturnal and iridescent, like seeing psychedelic colors fading in and out against a night sky. “Stick to My Side,” Weber’s collaboration with Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox (Panda Bear), is likewise an experiment in unexpected juxtapositions. Alongside Weber’s industrial scrapes and chilly arrangements, Lennox’s voice is the center of warmth in a song that is otherwise wintry and mechanical. The record picks up speed with the earthy, pulsing bass of “A Nomad’s Retreat,” a prelude to the more club-ready songs on the latter-half of the record. “Satellite Snyper” features a catchy synthline and some textural nods to early Kraftwerk, affirming German ingenuity in electronic music.

Album highlight “Behind the Stars” commences with a throbbing bassline and explosion of field recordings featuring lightly echoing taps and the mass cawing of birds. A deep voice croons along to some barely intelligible lyrics before giving way to the most catchy and energizing beat on the record. The song sounds appropriately dirty and sinister, made for the sweaty, late-night peaks of an Ibiza nightclub. “Bohemian Forest” best serves as an example of the melodic chimes that creep up as the album’s leitmotif. Weber textures a string of steel drums, synths and chimes that cascade in dizzying, hypnotic forms. Toward the end, the steel drums combine to pioneer a sound that can be described as a nascent form of pirate techno.

“Welt Am Draht” sets in with a heady rush of soothing beats and vocals, winding down the album’s emotional climax. Bells and clanks against a minimalist backdrop make for richly layered and almost transcendent listening. “Im Bann” is the most contemplative and sombrous track on the record. The sound of footsteps against grass merge with an orchestral arrangement of guitar, chorus and electronic noise. It most resembles Weber’s predilection for the melancholy sounds of early nineties shoegaze acts like Slowdive, who also liked to build up their sounds to almost cinematic scale.

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