Today, big names like Dubfire and Christian Smith can’t get enough of their studio productions and fans can’t get enough of them live, with the duo playing clubs like Amnesia and Berghain, and festivals like Time Warp and Snowbombing. The duo also recently ventured to cities like San Francisco and Denver, and both are impressed on how the techno scene has changed in America over recent years. “Denver was fucking rocking,” Tassilo says.
“I never expected it to be like that,” remarks a baffled Thomas. But it’s not just emerging hotspots such as these that have these Germans impressed, it’s the nature of the underground scene as a whole. “It’s been growing a lot. It’s not just the old Detroit and Chicago legends, but artists like Wolf + Lamb and our friends from San Francisco,” Tassilo says. “It’s becoming more of a European-style party. Before, it reminded me a little bit of the ‘90s, but not in a bad way. But now, the audience is really cool, they understand the music more, and they are more open to it,” Thomas reckons.
BUSTED
Pan-Pot first started coming to the States about six years ago. “The first US tour I did on my own, actually, because in those days Thomas was still scared of flying,” Tassilo says. “The first party was in NY and it got busted by the police. I thought, ‘Oh no, we have to go to prison now, they are going to take our gear!’ But since then, things have been more relaxed.” Relaxed atmospheres and European-style crowds provide the perfect platform for these two. On stage, their performances seem to mimic their personalities: effortless,
as Thomas might say. “I think ‘Confronted’ was the first track where we got this one element, which is like ‘screwing’ through the whole track, and we kind-of got stuck with that because we like it. One element which is kind of a hook line, always developing but not too present,” Tassilo remarks.
Though it isn’t just the unrelenting nature that gets you, it’s the haunting, original vocals that really set the track apart. They don’t believe in using pre-recorded or unoriginal vocals (from samples packs, for instance), and Tassilo even lends his voice to some tracks, including ‘White Fiction’, the title track to their newest EP. “He’s always the talker,” laughs Thomas. “We need a vocal and I just hand him the microphone. It’s just ‘blah blah blah’, then five minutes later we have a vocal and that’s it!”
FUN DUBSTEP
The two say they are thrilled with their newest EP, which topped the charts on Beatport. “We both play ‘White Fiction’ and ‘Mental Rush’ a lot, which is unusual for us. Most of the other tracks we stop playing after two or three times because we can’t listen to them anymore,” Tassilo says. However, one track in particular sticks out on the EP, though not everyone agrees on why. “We did something that fans didn’t like too much. We released a fun dubstep track with it,” Tassilo admits. He’s talking about ‘Keplar’, a semi-dubstep, semi-drum & bass track. The track oozes funk, with a twist of techno grime and old school filth — a truly leftfield and incredibly impressive departure for the accomplished techno and tech house producers. “We just want to gain the freedom of being able to do whatever we want to do,” Tassilo
Pan-Pot ‘Confronted’
Mobilee Recordings
The track that helped to define the Pan-Pot sound, ‘Confronted’ has a thundering, pulsating hook, bubbling just below an unnerving female vocal which spins a tale about getting sent to her room, having possible hallucinations about her lost friend, and hopping bunnies. Yeah, it screws with your head all right.
Pan-Pot & Cari Golden ‘Captain My Captain’
Mobilee Recordings
The doubling, detuned effect of Cari’s voice, combined with the utterly hypnotic groove, makes ‘Captain My Captain’ one of the duo’s most dizzying tunes. As she begs to be set free, it’s almost as though she’s trapped in the record itself. It’s only when this gloomy thunderhead finally subsides that we can feel safe on the dancefloor once again.
lighthearted, unpretentious and full of vigor. Musically, they tend to go wherever the night takes them, pulling out well-known jacking tech-house bombs, shifting to snare- heavy minimal, winding up with a bass-laden, driving techno. “We like to drive,” Thomas admits, though he’s not talking about cars. “I think that’s something we have been looking for since ‘Confronted’,” Tassilo remarks.
‘Confronted’ is their 2009 hit on Mobilee Records, the duo’s home since the label’s inception. It’s a track the duo would describe as not only driving, and possibly sound- defining, but one that really messes with your head on the dancefloor — “A screwer!”
Mobilee Recordings
Pan-Pot feat. G-Tech ‘Gravity’
Possibly their most driving track yet, it’s unmistakable Pan-Pot: underground enough to make the darkest club in Berlin shudder with delight, yet accessible enough to pop the top off of almost any club in the world, especially as the vocal urges “Burn this house down” just before the break.
Pan-Pot ‘White Fiction’
Mobilee Recordings
‘White Fiction’ is big. Daunting, almost. The vocal teases, whispering from the depths. More rhythmic than their other tracks, a far off snare keeps time with the bouncy groove. It isn’t till mid-way that the hypnotizing melody arises, melting in and out, pulling you down deep, spitting you out the other side. They didn’t get dubbed as being on the ‘dark side of the force’ for nothing.
explains. “We are going to stick to our main thing, which is techno and tech house, but still, it’s freedom of art. Some people on Facebook were really offended. And they started to say, ‘It’s over, we don’t want to listen to you guys anymore’. But these are the fans we don’t need.” “Yeah, we don’t want those kinds of fans anyway,” Thomas agrees.
Turns out, it’s going to take more than a few disgruntled ‘fans’ to rattle the unstoppable momentum — and imaginations — of Pan-Pot.
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