MP3: Pan Sonic - Virta 1.
We live in a world where countless faceless musical acts are all jockeying for the same infinitely small piece of the pie, so it's totally counterintuitive for a band to not promote themselves at all. The duo's new record "Katodivaihe" ("Cathodephase") was released with essentially zero fanfare - I only knew it existed because I saw a couple mailing list postings. Of course, it's gotten a tiny bit of attention here and there recently, but you'd probably only find it if you were seeking it out. Musically, this isn't much of a departure from 2004's massive 4xCD set "Kesto" - you know it's Pan Sonic from the get-go and there are no jarring surprises, only jarring noise. The addition of Hildur Gudnadottir's cello on a number of tracks however, does broaden their melodic range quite a bit. Pan Sonic has never been as rhythmically rigid as, say, Kraftwerk for instance, so the addition of a more "human" element does not feel unnatural. Actually, it's kind of surprising they haven't done something like this sooner. All in good time, I suppose. Like I said, Pan Sonic are not ones to make much of a fuss about anything.
Pan Sonic - Virta 1.