潘PAN (fka Aristophanes) releases the brand new EP, Reborn

Pan worked on the EP with BON (Kojey Radical, Mykki Blanco, Gaika) and Clams Casino on production duty and mixer David Wrench (Sampha, FKA Twigs, The xx). Performing in a mix of Mandarin and English, she says having the two languages to play with is “like featuring another artist who has a different way of describing things”.

Pan wrote the lyrics in Hong Kong, Berlin and Taipei, recorded and produced in London and Melbourne representing an emotional and physical journey across cultures and identities. Talking about the EP, she says “Pain, sorrow, anger, delicate sounds build up and demonstrate the strength of being vulnerable. The urge to feel connected and cared for in a relationship, the desire of expressing needs without shame, and the mixture of regret and limerence, all are very sexual, and intensively delivered by the sounds and abstract lyrics.”

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About the title track, she elaborates “Reborn is a song about the limerence to a person in the past, knowing clearly that nothing good would come out of doing it again, though still with hope it could work in a dream or a parallel universe.”

Though Pan Wei Ju is an entirely new artist, back in 2015, the Taipei-born rapper went by the moniker Aristophanes. After performing a career-changing feature on "SCREAM" taken from Grimes’ album, Art Angels, Aristophanes went on to build a cult fanbase, releasing her debut mixtape, Humans Become Machines.

With Reborn, Pan is reemerging with the same new energy that the EP’s title might suggest. “Aristophanes was me writing in my bedroom and doing my own thing, whereas now after years of travelling around, what I want to do is more about connection,” she says. “As an artist I’m more mature. This new music is bigger and it has a stronger message.”