PANABRITE

I frankly just jumped over 5 years in Norm Chambers aka Panabrite´s discography. I kind of got bored and desperate following his footsteps one by one from the start, considering mainly he releases simultaneous same year albums and has shown so far signs of non originality blatantly.

Transfer (2016):

Finally Panabrite starts to find his own voice, still mildly, but at last he shows his own ideas branching out off his influences.

A 10 track album with some fresh surprises and mostly relying on more contemporary electronic music styles ranging from Glitch, Chiptune, Noise & Minimal techno and tainting it both with the Berlin school pulse driven lines and Kraftwerk´s computer like music sequences and in between his own class of electronics.

Freeing himself in slow motion of other people music idioms and paying better attention to his music composition, he at last starts to find a road in these electronic fields and also kind of promises some future 4 star releases, if he continues keeping it up at this pace.

***

More in tune with the Berlin school of electronic music´s Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze academies, this work does not jump over Panabrite´s before mentioned influences it just settles for a more focused encounter with these two. It is extremely well recorded and sound engineered that is a fact.

What else.., well Wind Rider (2011) a 7 track release, still shows a musician looking for an own music language, the fact that I kind of being faithful as possible with its releases chronology has to do more with mere luck than actually having some real interest so far with my Panabrite´s acquisitions.

**

— First review of this album —

A musician in search of his own electronic music language's cookbook.

PANABRITE: Contemplating The Observatory (2010) Most contemporary electronic music composers were given almost free or easy access to top technologies when in comes to electronic instruments, gadgets, virtual & portable recording studios and their respective editing tools etc, etc, etc.. Opposite to, let's say 20 years ago electronic musicians and less, of course, to last century's ones.

What technology can not possibly provide are the human conditions required for artistry to develop, less to construct an own artist language.

So if taken as a young composers' electronic music influences listing performed with top tech sound gear in a 15 track album it will be easier to understand as derivative (to avoid calling it rip offs even though it is not for free and/or derivative of his own language but it sounds nicer said that way ).

The trip includes at least 20 stopovers to various of Panabrite's evident influences ranging from Jarre to Enigma to Zanov to Morton Garson to Tonto's Expanding Head Band to both TD & K. Schulze (how original) to White Noise to lots of other familiar faces.

If it was not meant to be a tribute it sounds like that and adds, if not any kind of originality, fun to the game of "Guess This influence?".

Now the rating thing.

For collectors who already know or appreciate PANABRITE'S future works, who I'm still not one of them so far, therefore I'll check it in the loyal fans & friends: 2 stars box or as a reviewer conclude that it "lacks 90% original music language and maybe someday he will deliver it or maybe not but it is, I repeat, extremely well recorded."

**

— First review of this album —

PANABRITE (acronym for Seattle/USA based musician Norm Chambers).

Well, when I read beforehand about this artist I was expecting the resurrection of some kind of superhuman with electric wings, but as always, in the market business, things tend to get overblown. Maybe all those "medals" they talk about have to do with posterior works, but I acquired randomly three of his albums one of those is this Panabrite: Nordsee ( a 14 track, 2009 album and as far as it seems his first public release).

The good news:

Its music ideas go through various contemporary electronic music stylings with sometimes better, sometimes mild, or just plain bad results. (...which kind of make the good news look not so good).

The bad news:

It shows upfront creative deficiencies music composition wise. There are quiet naive and quiet corny solutions to better deserving ideas and its simplicity and repetition may well hide a lack of, or to be more gentle, an amateur personal musical language. Therefore some of its better moments are far from being original. To close it up, its music composition plays along quiet cliched comfort zones and rarely goes beyond those borderlines.

The rating (....the crappy part of reviewing):

The same as always in my book, music composition comes first, better if it is unique (or at least daring even if not perfect), then I don´t care if you play with stick & stones or the latest (or oldest) synths in a cave or in a clean cut high tech studio.

I would not recommend to start PANABRITE´s acquaintance with this particular work.

**/* (tops)