Pan Sonic

experimental

Pan Sonic (known as Panasonic before legal issues took away the letter A) was two guys (Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen) project from Finland, who started out with long-term, low-frequency, high-decibel experiments and organizing rave parties in the country where hardly anything happens ever. The minimalistic music of Pan Sonic is composed from a forbidding array of pure tones, sinewaves, pulses, electronic squelches and ultrasonic waveforms, skilfully arranged into an accessible rhythmic package mainly taken from the bowels of custom-built sinewave generators. Given songs titled Kurnutus or Rutina (that is Croaking and Crackle), the environmental buzz, crackles and hums emanating from the speakers are hardly a surprise. Despite suggesting a harmless set of natural (sounding) frequencies, Pan Sonic have built up a reputation for fearsome live volume levels and atonal indulgence. 1993 2010 Pan Sonic, known as Panasonic from 1993 until 1998, are an internationally renowned Finnish electronic music project which began when Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen first met within the art and techno scene of Turku. In 1994 (with the 3rd member Sami Salo who left the band in 1996) they started to release on Sähkö, the experimental techno label of their friend Tommi Grönlund. On their first tour outside of Finland, leading to London, they got a record deal with Blast First, the Mute sub-label where in 1995 they gained international respect with their album Vakio, originally released a...