Carry On Carillon: Best Fit speaks to Pantha du Prince

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Over the course of three albums, Hendrik Weber has honed his minimal techno sounds in such a way to ensure that his alter ego, Pantha du Prince is one of the most important names in dance music today.

From the intensity of debut album Diamond Daze, through the more laid-back explorations of This Bliss to 2010’s Black Noise, a record of electronic music that explored nature and science in a way that very few releases in the genre had done before, simply through the trick of adding a clear narrative to instrumental dance music. On that record, Hamburg native Weber had begun to experiment with more organic sounds – one of which happened to be the sound of bells. This burgeoning interest in the bells became something of an obsession for Weber, culminating in a special experience at Oslo City Halls. There, Weber heard one of the daily concerts played on the giant bell carillon in the City Hall and was fascinated by how the sound of the bells changed and developed across the city. He was encouraged to pursue his interest in the bells, and what began as an interest ended in a collaboration with The Bell Laboratory to make the album Elements of Light.

On that record – influenced by 3500 years of bell playing, the modern composers John Cage and Steve Reich, minimal techno (of course), jazz and eastern music – we hear the sound of various bell players but most importantly we hear the sound of the 50 bronze bells that make up the carillon. Weber even went to the length of importing a three-tonne bell from Denmark to Germany, and of course for a project inspired by the Oslo carillon, he had to get the man who played that bell to appear on the album, the Norwegian carillonist Vegar Sandholt.

Although the Elements of Light story is intrinsically linked with the Oslo City Halls bells, the idea of the record was in Weber’s mind before his Norwegian experience: “It’s kind of a longer story with the carillon,” begins Hendrik. “There was research before the Oslo carillon experience, so I was very much aware of Oslo because it was so exceptional compared to my carillon experiences before. It’s a special instrument you hear in Oslo.” So where did the carillon experience begin? “I heard the one in Berlin through a composition played by Charlemagne Palestine, there’s also one in Hamburg that we listened to, but the one in Oslo is so outstanding and a good reason to get into the matter more.”

It seems that the power of the Oslo carillon (it’s often tagged as The Voice of the City) was the final catalyst for the project, though. Having experienced the sound of it myself during a trip to Oslo a few years back, it is quite an experience and one you can hear across various parts of the beautiful Norwegian capital. Hendrik agrees: “Yeah, I mean the whole thing is that it’s so precise, and so musical, but at the same time you can hear it throughout the city.” But what’s so special about this carillon form? “It’s overwhelming but at the same time you hear weird melodies,” explains Weber, “and I heard this dysfunctional use of the carillon that you would probably not hear anywhere else in the world! So it was kind of a coincidence that led me to work with it more intensely than I was already into.”

Weber explains that this is also the first time he’s worked physically with bells, despite the presence of the sounds on his earlier work: “On Black Noise it’s all synthetic sounds; also, it’s kind of inter-weaved and layered digital-acoustic sounds, but on Elements of Light you basically hear an ensemble playing and I would say it’s like 80% acoustic information travelling through the air into microphone… so it’s a different way of expressing music.” Do we hear the natural, organic sounds of the bells, or have they been manipulated to fit the recording? “Yeah, I mean it’s always difficult to say ‘manipulated’ because you already manipulate the sound as soon as it’s recorded, in a way. There are so many ways of recording… so let me say you always manipulate once you start thinking about the sonic world you have influence over. Once you start to create, it’s already a process.”

Hendrik goes on to explain a little more about the recording of the album, and reveals a very organic process for what’s on the face of it a “dance” record, compared with the sounds on Black Noise: “This time, of course, it was different because we basically let the acoustic sounds stay as they were and there wasn’t so much of a synthetic process or post-production. It was kind of getting the information together which was more of a challenge than transforming the actual sound source.” So once the bells were recorded, was Hendrik stepping back from doing much with them? “We were letting the recording ‘be’,” he agrees. “What we had, what the musicians were playing… you hear what the musicians are playing on the record – there’s not much post-production involved, it’s very much pure, what you hear on Elements of Light. It’s a very acoustic and pure record.” Did any of the music exist before his Oslo experience, or was the music written especially for a bells record? “Partly the music existed before, but we created an instrument so I could start writing for the ensemble also,” says Weber. “So it was kind of an approach from two ends. We had all the recordings from the Oslo bells on an instrument so I could basically play the bell tower in my studio and then write for a carillon, so I would know how the frequencies are developing, which tones work together and which are not so good. So it was a very useful tool to start working with this ensemble; I was able to set everything around the carillon.”

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I want to know more about the difficulties in recording the carillon, particularly given the power of the Oslo carillon, and the distances that sound travels. Hendrik reveals that it wasn’t the easiest of jobs to contain the sounds: “In the studio it was pretty hardcore! It’s not so difficult in a live situation because you already have the natural sound in the room, but to get it on tape it was a challenge, I have to say.” And what steps do you have to take to ensure you’re getting the right sound on tape? “To find the right spot where basically you can have a balance with the melodies, and the overtones…and to find a position in a room where you have a melody that you can follow was the struggle and the big ‘issue’ when we recorded the carillon, it was really challenging. We also had all the room resonances… and sometimes the bells ring, they ring for so long, you know? And you’d never be able to do edits, or cut things, so getting the stuff played really took us some time.”

However, for Weber it got to be a lot more fun when it came to playing the music live: “But for the live situation, it’s really cool! I really like it because the instrument itself is not so loud; when we use it, it really kind of blends into the rest of the music… so live, it’s really nice actually – it’s a good sounding, really well-tuned instrument that we’re using.” And does the record become something else then when it’s played live; does it sound a lot different? “I mean, for me it’s difficult to say because I’m onstage when we play it and I’m part of the organism,” he admits. “So I can’t tell; but what my sound engineer says and what also people from the audience say is that the piece really works live. It’s a huge orchestration, very minimal at the same time…and people really dive into it! It’s probably a piece that really translates the best live, so we’ll see if we get the possibility to play it. Up until now we’ve had gigs in Germany and France, and one in London, and I think the rest are on their way… it’s interesting to see what will happen!”

Given that the carillon is such a huge instrument and players of the bell aren’t exactly hanging around street corners waiting to be asked to join a project, was it easy for Weber to find the right people to play on the record? He reveals that this album was something he just had to finish: “The whole project basically, for me, it felt like it had to be done, you know?” So it was a dogged pursuit of his targets? “Once I mentioned that I was interested in working with the carillon in Oslo, there was this whole kind of network coming in – of musicians – who had the same fascination for bell sounds and percussive, melodic music… so we were able to always find musicians to play it, because they were really loving it. So basically when we started we already knew with which musicians we’d be playing, and also that the musicians would bring their own gear, because they all had instruments that sound the same, that they’d find in their own studios or rehearsal rooms.”

The process continued with Weber making sure he understood the players and their instruments in their own environment: “I went to each musician, to their rehearsal rooms and studios, and we’d look at what they had, or could play, so I would choose a setup and see how they played and connect with their environment when they rehearse.” Was this one of the vital steps in ensuring the project would go ahead? “It was important to know what we could achieve in the recording process,” admits Hendrik. “I ran into a working thing that was already well organised, in a way. If I had needed to look for musicians, the whole thing would have been too complicated to proceed with!”

I ask Hendrik if the connotations of the bell in everyday life had any effect on the project; it symbolises so many things, from the religious, to the celebratory, as a warning signal and a way of calling a community together. Was this something he wanted to reflect on Elements of Light? “I think what we tried was to give it a prominent position in a musical environment,” begins Hendrik. “So basically we were using the connotations of the bell, and redefining the instrument itself and its sounds and sound variations. It’s also to re-start the instrument itself, and the sound and frequency range, and take it out of context, and say it’s ‘elements of light’, you know? The bells are the elements of light; it’s just a very clear and defined, refined tone that sets a certain mood and has a clearness and a physical presence that is not comparable with anything. This is what we discovered during our communications about the sound range and how we would use the instrument.”

Weber goes on to explain the connections between the carillon and the title of the record: “For me it was important to look at light as a phenomenon, and how we can imagine it as our constructor of reality, basically. This is also a question of the visual culture – we receive the world through light and picture and colours, but you could also imagine that we just hear, for example, or touch, and the world would be in darkness because we wouldn’t still exist .” He also points out the importance of scientific development to the record: “It’s also this whole kind of reflection upon a time, the beginning of the 20th century when Einstein figured the space-time continuum broken by the light, space and time folds around the development of light. This discovery influenced art and music as well, and that’s what reverberates in the piece. Using bells as an instrument also reflects this whole ‘new science’ or modernity.”

However, it’s not all such high concept stuff, as Hendrik reveals at the end of our interview: “At the end it’s also just a very simple thing: if you look into a bell tower, you’re most of the time just blinded by the light, and the bells become part of the light you’re blinded by. Also, you burn the bells… they’re burnt instruments so they’re compressed light… there’s all these connotations and stories within the title, and the record tells the story of the title.” In the end, it’s sometimes the simplest and most basic things that produce the most interesting pieces of work.

Elements of Light is available now through Rough Trade and Pantha du Prince will perform with The Bell Laboratory on 15 February at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Tickets are available via this link.