Pantha Du Prince

German electronic artist Hendrik Weber launched the Pantha du Prince project with explorations of dreamlike minimal techno, later broadening its palette toward richer sonic layers and a broader array of instruments. Spanning releases that commenced in the early 2000s, the endeavor progressed from the somber, bell-ornamented techno heard on the 2007 album This Bliss toward the brighter orchestrations and larger ensemble heard on subsequent efforts, among them the nature-themed Conference of Trees in 2020 and Garden Gaia in 2022.

Weber issued material under several aliases across the years, among them Glühen 4 and Panthel, yet he adopted the Pantha du Prince name in 2002 upon joining the Hamburg experimental techno imprint Dial. His first Pantha du Prince outing was the four-track 12" Nowhere (2002), succeeded two years afterward by the full-length CD/double LP Diamond Daze (2004). The record drew widespread praise, as certain reviewers eagerly noted Weber’s kinship with late-’80s British shoegaze acts including Slowdive, Moose, Ride, and My Bloody Valentine. Traces of Detroit techno in the manner of Carl Craig and minimal techno in the Chain Reaction vein likewise surfaced.

After issuing the remix 12" Butterfly Girl Versions (2005) and the standalone 12" Lichten/Walden (2006), Weber delivered his second Pantha du Prince album, This Bliss (2007), which likewise attracted substantial critical regard; German techno publications Spex and Groove each named it Record of the Month, while Pitchfork offered a positive assessment in the United States. He moved to Rough Trade for Black Noise (2010), which incorporated appearances by Tyler Pope of !!! and Noah Lennox of Animal Collective. Four Tet, Hieroglyphic Being, and Animal Collective supplied remixes for the 2011 collection XI Versions of Black Noise. Pantha du Prince issued his fourth album, Elements of Light, in 2013, a joint effort with Norway’s Bell Laboratory.

Three years later he resurfaced with the single “The Winter Hymn,” the opening track of his fifth album, The Triad, issued by Rough Trade in May 2016. That release marked the first Pantha du Prince album to feature an expanded roster comprising Scott Mou, also known as Queens, and Bendik Kjeldsberg of the Bell Laboratory. Weber resumed activity under his own name in 2020 with the sixth Pantha du Prince album, Conference of Trees, a dense assemblage of layered electro-acoustic ambience that fused acoustic instruments with subdued electronics. Conference of Trees centered thematically on the planet and the natural realm, an emphasis mirrored in both its track titles and its warmer instrumental textures. In 2021 Weber released 429 HZ Formen Von Stille under his given name, a body of work that leaned more ambient and neo-classical than his rhythm-oriented Pantha du Prince output. He resumed the Pantha du Prince guise in 2022 with Garden Gaia, extending the meditations on nature and the terrestrial ecosystem first introduced on Conference of Trees.