In Aberdeen on their 2015 tour, Pan-Pot are at home in the club or at a festival.
Pan-Pot took on the main stage at Creamfields this year.
Pop music and body music tend to have pretty different agendas. The LP album format is tailor-made for the narrative tradition of vocally driven pop and rock, whereas dance music is made to move bodies, and it needs to be mixable. EPs and A/B singles have historically proven better DJ tools, so it's not that the album is a lost art in dance music—it's just an unnecessary art.
Still, dance music producers who want to be considered artists have always yearned to conquer the LP format, even as they struggle to wrench the atmosphere and relentless groove of the club into a 12-track LP narrative.
In that regard, no act has proved as adept at funneling the uncompromising attitude of techno into new musical terrain as the Berlin-based duo of Tassilo Ippenberger and Thomas Benedix, known best to the world as Pan-Pot. The duo's debut record, Pan-O-Rama, released almost a decade ago, set a high benchmark for the post-millennial techno LP, paving the way for a spirit of adventurism in the genre while putting Anja Schneider's Mobilee imprint on the map.
In Aberdeen on their 2015 tour, Pan-Pot are at home in the club or at a festival.
Atop a steady flow of releases and a relentless touring schedule that's seen them become Ibiza favorites, Pan-Pot unleashed a flurry of music in late 2015. First, there was The Other LP, released in September on the duo's own Second State imprint; this week, they're back with a remix 10-tracker that features Carl Cox, Nicole Moudaber, Stephan Bodzin, Alan Fitzpatrick, Joseph Capriati and Extrawelt.
The album is a rock-solid collection of techno tunes that carry a warm, melodic grace, topped with a number of commendable forays into house, trip-hop, and breakbeat. That the roster of artists itching to take on remixes reads like the above is testament to Pan Pot's exalted status as dance music producers and their ability to inspire others to create.
In the midst of a current stateside jaunt, we found a moment to pick apart the particular magic that's kept Pan-Pot on top for so long. "There is a Yin and Yang to Pan-Pot," says Benedix of their style. "We like the dark atmosphere of techno, but the experimental side of things is important to us. I think within our DJ sets and also on the album, you can find a central theme that describes our music."
Pan-Pot took on the main stage at Creamfields this year.
Transferring the energy and mood of, say, Watergate—a favorite haunt of Pan-Pot—into the cozier confines of home listening requires a level of musicality that most DJs and most producers cannot claim, but it's been Pan-Pot's calling since the pair met at engineering school 13 years ago. Their first release was picked up by Mobilee, and they have been scene leaders ever since.
"Techno was invented to create a specific atmosphere at a club," Thomas explains. "For that, sometimes you should not make too many compromises. But we do like to not only think in strict genres. At the end, it is also about experimenting with sounds, where you cannot feel limited. This is how techno was born in the first place."
The Other's experimental approach is evident from the outset. The record begins with "Your Attention," a broken beat electronica number the duo has been opening up their sets with all year. It's not until the middle of the LP, with the triple hitter of "Operator," "Broken Engine," and "Twelve," that Pan-Pot nestle into the aesthetics for which they're best known––dark, driving, club-ready techno that oozes with atmosphere, smartly laid melody, and a good dose of weirdness.
On three occasions on The Other, Pan-Pot undertakes one of the most difficult feats in all of techno, a device which also happens to be an age-old ally of the album format: vocals.
"I think vocals should be used sparingly and only where it makes sense," says Tassilo. "If you take vocals and try to make a smashing club track or even hit out of them, it does not work, at least not for us...This conflicts with the idea and understanding of Techno."
Well aware of this, Pan-Pot's most successful experimentations with vocals on the record are the more sparse contributions of ABBY on the excellent, house-leaning "Fugitives." His vocals don't enter the fray until a mid-track breakdown, giving way to an undeniably moving house groove. It's excellent.
DJ and neighbor at Pan-Pot's Riverside Studios in Berlin Kevin Knapp provided the two-word refrain for "Get In," a brooding descent of a tune that will either have dancefloors in chaos or ravers staring into the abyss with Knapp's ominous call leading the way.
In Brazil, another satisfied audience.
Pan-Pot endured the most welcome of problems when sending out invites for The Other's counterpart remix release. "We were lucky and pretty much everybody said yes," says Tassilo with a laugh. The tunes on the collection are as flawless as the remixer credits are impressive. Kevin Knapp remixes "Get In," the tune on which he provides vocals; Nicole Moudaber brings darkness in droves on "Attention"; and the double-hitter of Carl Cox's Ibiza techno groover and Paul Ritch's no-holds-barred peak-time smasher would work well as a case study in how differently two artists can interpret the same tune.
The standout on the whole release might be the untouchable Stephan Bodzin's take on "Sleepless." "It really screwed itself into my head more and more and I really fell in love with it," says Tassilo. "All in all, every single remix is a masterpiece."
Pan-Pot is currently on a stateside tour that sees them in Los Angeles at Exchange this weekend and Output in New York City next Friday. Check the mix above, a continuous selection that weaves through The Other originals and remixes, made exclusively for THUMP.
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In Brazil, another satisfied audience.