Black Noise sounds like it hails from the same shimmering pop landscape as Animal Collective (in fact, that band’s Noah Lennox AKA Panda Bear sings on the standout track “Stick to My Side”). But Pantha du Prince’s Hendrick Weber keeps his ambient sounds firmly rooted in the dance-music tradition with metallic drums and rubbery bass. On Black Noise, Weber sounds like he’s trying to reconcile his sense of hazy experimentalism with a more straight-ahead dancefloor sensibility. In lesser hands, this gambit could lead to a messy clash of ideas, with each side clamouring for your attention. But Weber doesn’t allow one version of himself to overpower the other and the constant metronome of the classic simple techno rhythm works as a stage on which Weber can weave his black magic.
This article appears in Mar 4-10, 2010.