Panauromni

Psychoangelo is challenging and boundary pushing from beginning to end, keeping the listener engaged in dreamland. I can submerse my ears in these unearthly sonic collages all day long, listening to the different layers upon layers of information deftly reveal themselves. Glen and Michael are master painters creating compelling, artistic and uncompromising art.

– Cuong Vu

Imagine yourself standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon and you might capture a sense of the wide expanse of this music. Imagine then a full 150 piece orchestra playing from the bottom, and you’ll be even closer. Then you’ll read the liner notes to discover it’s all created by one trumpet, a guitar, some ‘small objects’ and digital technology, with only two singular artists at the center of it. A huge, transportive and panoramic recording.

– Todd Reynolds

Though one presumes that the album title’s similarity to ‘paranormal’ is accidental, there’s nevertheless a haunted quality to the material. Oftentimes, the elements cohere into simmering masses of combustible sound, with all parts subsumed into the whole except for Whitehead’s blustery trumpet. The title track multiplies the trumpet into a muffled choir while huge industrial emissions swell in the background. “Dodechophoenix” ups the turbulence ante even further with its rippling horn cyclone before the final piece, “Phosphorus Mas Frio,” induces a relatively calmer state with a blinding drone of white heat. Panauromni is a challenging recording but also adventurous and boundary-challenging in the best possible way.

– Textura

Un quadrato con un cerchio al suo interno. Un triangolo mistico. Un rombo che vibra. Una cuffia. Quattro simboli spuntano da una superficie beige di brossura. Stiamo parlando di ‘Psychoangelo’, nome dell’ultimo lavoro dei Panauromni, progetto creato da Glen Whitehead (trombe, computer, effects processing) e Michael Teodore (computer, chitarra e percussioni). Dal design minimalista, il suono ambient di‘Psychoangelo’ si pone come il nome di un viaggio verso il metafisico. Le sei tracce proposte si danno in continuità con un’unica texture elettronica, di cui la tromba si fa “voce”, “colore” e “guida” all’interno di un eterno ritorno di suoni. Solo la quinta traccia, The Wary Dresam in Silver, distoglie leggermente l’andamento lineare del sound, con suoni più granulari, pastosi, ed una tromba che si fa sfondo sempre più lontano, fino a scemare e dare origine a Phosphorus, l’ultima traccia, in cui compare il synth. In tutti i suoi 44:18 minuti, la musica dell’album è grezza, a tratti schiva ed intuitiva, ma il senso del profondo conferisce a questo disco, nell’ascoltarlo, un certo fascino e mistero che porta quasi all’ipnosi. L’universo è eterno, ma la materia che lo compone è finita, e le combinazioni possibili devono essere state percorse tutte. Ciascun istante si ripete infinite volte e ne consegue che il valore di ognuno di essi si moltiplica senza sosta. A noi spetta saper sopportare il peso di questo “infinito”. Il peso di questa ripetizione.

– Federica -La Roux- P, Kathodik

“In 1977, NASA loaded spacecraft with records as a cosmic hello to E.T.s. This could be the response.” (Top 10 Classical & Opera Albums of 2010)

– Time Out Chicago

“[Panauromni] consists of gradually shifting layers of sound heavily processed from its original form … At times the trumpet is shifted down in pitch and sounds like a didgeridoo. At other times, several trumpets combine to form an amorphous chorus of notes, like chords but not quite … Sometimes, little squealing noises from the trumpet are thrown around like bits of paper in a whirlwind … [T]hese works could be characterized as massively minimalist, in that very few elements are used, but they are assembled into huge walls of sound.”

– Jon Davis, Expose