‘Lay in a Shimmer’ is the second single from Pantha Du Prince’s fantastic album Black Noise, having already exhausted the obvious single choice of ‘Stick To My Side’ with its star guest vocalist Noah Lennox of Animal Collective. So why, of all the glorious brooding dark techno found on Black Noise release ‘Lay In A Shimmer’? Probably for all the same reasons he chose it to be the opening track on his album. ‘Lay In A Shimmer’ oozes in gracefully, the bass tones form a carpet of noise that is elegantly decorated by the shimmering xylophones that is simply irresistible.
The beat that drives the song is surreptitiously propulsive, so distracting are the xylophones that you may not notice at first that you’re nodding your head unstoppably in rhythm with the song. ‘Lay In A Shimmer’ is the perfect introduction to the world of Pantha Du Prince which is why it was chosen to be the opening track and now that it’s a single it will hopefully attract several others to the glory of Black Noise.
So what of the b-sides? Both ‘Sonnensturm’ and the 9-minute ‘Ursonate 3’ take the same basic ingredients that the songs on Black Noise have, but fail to really conjure up the same unquantifiable magic that resides within that album. Both tracks are worth a listen for people who are Pantha Du Prince fans, but my fear is that if a newcomer to Pantha Du Prince picks up this single they may get the impression from these b-sides that ‘Lay In A Shimmer’ is something of a brilliant anomale in his catalogue, but here’s hoping people have better sense than that.
Words : Rob Hakimian
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