Pan Sonic

Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen's Pan Sonic is less an austere approach to dance music than a rhythmic examination of sound phenomena. Their tracks are a culmination of terse sounds, pops, clicks and dry tones, cycling through subtle, minute changes. Through repetition, the delicate soundforms are displayed for examination as if in a petri dish, but the method is not entirely dry and scientific: prolonged focus on subtleties in minutia becomes a meditative operation. As Pan Sonic's loops shift slowly, your attention becomes more focused and your hearing becomes more attuned to the possibilities latent in such microscopic sound. Though their music is so acutely mechanical and digital, the shifts in sound become organic. Listening is like attending a heartbeat or watching the color changes in a sunrise.