Pax's ode to Euro & Southeast Asian disco
Building and blending the lesser heard rhythms and vibes with Pax; press photo courtesy of the artist.
Los Angeles-based bedroom pop boffin Pax has mystified the musical undergrounds for years. With a career spanning over a decade, the elusive musician [fka Pictochat] has made a name for themselves as your favorite artist’s favorite artist with countless genre-defying tracks. With an oeuvre spanning releases like leaving, Sophomore, melo.grano, lookbook [french house tape], cherry: outtakes, a holiday album with TV Blonde, Because We're Old, CAMDOG, Tricot, Hazards! & more — Pax presents an east meets the Pacific west discotheque with the island aura of Bermuda.
The new album Bermuda brings a new retro batch of funk and disco that spans across the globe, and expertly trips into different dimensions of time and space. Kicking it off with "Cairo", Pax commands rhythms and keys that dance into a variety of decidedly demure movements and moments that sparkle like that elusive holiday in the sun that you have always wanted. The ultra chic of "San Francisco Disco" is the perfect head bopping number that you want to hear while hitting up your favorite café in the Mission, with a slick and smart style that will transport anyone listening in the world to a bespoke Bay Area natural wine salon replete with obscure vintage wax spinning on the platters. Featuring vocals from TV Blonde, the dreamy vacation vernaculars carries over on to the title track that drifts off to North Atlantic coordinates to explore parts unknown, uncharted, and all around intriguing. "Domino" gradually kicks up the party to the full hilt of a Friday night at a beloved local haunt that makes even the most humble neighborhood dive feel like the most rustic and wondrous watering hole located somewhere in the opposite corner of the world.
"Hard2Believe" keeps the international dance party sharp and strutting side to side, riding high and calm with a breezy sense of romanticism that coasts with a sense of whimsy and wonder. Pax takes the party to the places that connect the Pacific to the far east on "KungFuGirl" that sounds like the theme song to an obscure television programme from the late 80s, known only by a few with discerning taste. The ballroom bops keep on serving slick and suave steps with tracks like "DaBoogieMane" that brings it all home with heart on "P-Noi Step" like an endless soirée attended by family and dearest friends on a Southeast Asian isle in an event for the ages. Bermuda is one of the year's most clever dance records, an infectious array of addictive percussive pop gems that makes the entire world feel a little closer, a little kinder, a little warmer, and a little more irresistibly awe-inspiring.
Join Pax after the jump for an exclusive inside look at the new album, along with insights on inspirations:
World disco dalliance dissertations by Pax
Pax in the mix and in effect; press photo courtesy of the artist.
The album itself is an ode to Euro and Southeast Asian disco, so a lot of the inspirations for the album didn't necessarily come from a specific artist. I actually ended up stumbling upon some mixes throughout the past five years that ended up making me fascinated with disco and why Euro and Asian disco is so different from disco in the US. These mixes contained so many songs that you could only find through Discogs, and that many of these records from the 70s and 80s are being kept alive through the efforts of these disco DJs. That's also what kind of inspired me to do a run of vinyl at name-your-price on Bandcamp; I really wanted to place an importance on physical media and making it accessible to those who appreciate this medium.
For inspirations and fascinations:
Chris Hound, French Boogie and Ye-Ye
Chris Hound, owner of Paxico records, has been one of my favorite curators over the years. He released this mix on cassette back in 2020 and this is what kind of started the snowball of my deep dive into euro disco and boogie.
Midnight Runners
Midnight Runners are a group of DJs from Bali, Indonesia who curate rare Indonesian pop, psych and disco, and release these as mixes, as well as physicals on their Bandcamp. I was looking into my own cultural background (Italy and the Philippines), which led me to dive even deeper and look at all music coming from Southeast Asia, which led me to some DJs who were playing vinyl pressed by the Midnight Runners. Really loved how raw and unpolished some of these recordings are because it highlights the musicianship of these artists/bands/vocalists.
Fariz RM
Fariz is the man. I read somewhere that he recorded a bunch of his earlier tapes all by himself in his own home on an 8-track or something. I felt so drawn to it, not only because of how amazing the music is, but also because I struggle with recording everything on my own. I don't have access to a studio or session players, and I also kinda hate relying on other people to record things for me, so I often have to teach myself new instruments or unlearn and relearn instruments in order to get what I want. I really did try to push my limitations as a musician on this album because of Fariz and what he was doing. I know a lot of artists have done this or still do this, but man, the attention to detail, the amount of layers and difficulty there is with dealing with tape, really highlights how great of a musician and songwriter he is.
Mauskovic Dance Band
My girlfriend took me to see them in 2022 at the Echo. Didn't know anything about this band, but instantly locked into them at the show, and they became a band that showed me that less is more. There was only 4 people in the band, and they were all switching instruments with each other with every song. Their music felt like an entire six to eight person ensemble was playing but it only came down to the four of them, and they had this implication that something big was happening in the song when really it just came down to one synth, bass, drums and really sick percussion. One guy was playing the timbales and conga while playing guitar at the same time, while the drummer would be drumming and playing a sampler. It was so loose but they were all so locked in at the same time. Definitely tried mimicking them on the bridge of "Domino"!
Kraftwerk
I don't know man, Kraftwerk is sick, that's all I can really say. The call-and-response between the vocals and the synths inspired a lot of the music arrangements on the album, as well as the things that I tried doing with the drum-machines and percussion.