Pan Sonic - Live PA - Supermarket - Torinio IT - Oct 2004

Biography of Pan Sonic

Pan Sonic (they were called Panasonic before but had to change their name in 1997 due to legal issues with the Japanese electronics company) are two guys from Finland. Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen, who started out with long-term, low-frequency, high-decibel experiments and organizing rave parties where 'hardly anything happens ever' (a.k.a. Finland). Sami Salo (Hertsi), the former third member of Panasonic, left the band in 1996. The minimalistic music of Pan Sonic is composed 'from a forbidding array of pure tones, sinewaves, pulses, electronic squelches and ultrasonic waveforms, and a humorous attitude, skillfully 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 harldy 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.

Pan Sonic on the (symbiotic) relation to their equipment: 'The way we are making music, the machines are as important as we are. It goes both ways. When we are building the tracks we have some ideas in our minds; they're still playing us as well. Sometimes it's very difficult, if you have a really specific idea to make a certain kind of track, it's often very difficult to force the track into that direction. It's often a lot easier and more enjoyable when you just let it grow by itself, in a way. Just go, and follow it.'

'...this music makes an environment like a lift elevator, or a coffee machine: it's your friend, it's not just like a coffee machine that makes coffee, you have more contact with it. It's more normal.' (a friend of Pan Sonic on their 1996 release 'Vakio')