official Covenant Forum

Zitat

"Calling time on one of the most important electronic acts in existence, Pan Sonic bow out with their immense final album, 'Gravitoni'. It's a typical feat of overwhelming sonic physicality from a duo who've owned the rights to the 'Power Electronics' tag ever since 1994 and the release of the 'Panasonic EP'. Working together, Ilpo Väisänen and Mika Vainio opened the blackest vortex to a world of unadulterated electronics wrested from homemade and circuit bent hardware, creating an uncompromising vision of techno concrete that built monolithic structures in the shadow of their predecessors Einstürzende Neubauten, Throbbing Gristle and Pierre Henry. 'Gravitoni' feels like they've abandoned all hope, taunting an oncoming apocalypse with two fingers clutching an exposed 1/2" jack lead and a granite glazed look that tundra wolves wouldn't f*ck with. Whereas previous album 'Katodivaihe' offered some respite with Hildur Gudnadottir's arcing bows, here it's just two Finnish blokes with an arsenal of brutal beats and lucid tones. From the outset of 'Voltos Bolt' introductions are dispensed with in order to get down to business, a landslide of skull crushing bass hits and molten silicon slurry to encase your cochlea. Next 'Wanyugo' perhaps suggests they've spent time in Northern England, picking up the lingo and developing a bellicose attitude to match, swaggering with the darkest synthlines around and bristling with kinetic potential. Meanwhile, a false start in 'Corona' trips into a murderous noise and 200bpm gabber assault executed with such intent that you could even imagine them having a wry smirk to each other in the studio. With 'Radio Qurghonteppa' fear not, your speakers aren't about to cave in, they've simply managed to create a bass frequency that makes it sound like your cabs are coming apart from the cone. That's all. In 'Trepanation' they bust out the rusty iron and set about doing a Varg Vikernes on your life, sucking up elemental black metal power and stripping away all the camp sh*t, leaving a bloodied pile of still fizzing Euronymous at their feet, scalp (skull tip attached) in hand, still not smiling. The final section of the album presents three sublime visions of tonal darkness, from the pitch black electro-acoustic spaces of 'Väinämöinen Dreams' to the deliberate passage of 'Hades' where we mix our myths and Thor drops Atomic subbass bombs outside the gates while a choir of droning Gregorian sirens lure us inside. Then, we're treated to an extreme panning recital on 'Twinaskew' before finally being delivered at the death disco with the most astonishing moment on the album - 'Pan Finale', stretching a classic 1980 Cure tape loop to Zombiefied Paisley-concrete drum patterns and shuddering in the presence of an almighty buzzsawn synewave. Thankfully, we're quite certain we'll hear new material from both instigators in the future, but from now on we're just gonna have to dig out all our old Pan Sonic records and have a crywank with the X-Bass boost function turned on till kingdom come. Amazing music."