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Hungarian drummer and electronicist
Balázs Pándi is a prolific international recording artist and improviser. He has been a name collaborator or sideman on more than 50 releases. He may be best known for his extensive collaborations with Japanese noise artist
Merzbow (
Masami Akita), American pianist
Jamie Saft, and Swedish saxophonist
Mats Gustafsson.
Pándi has collaborated with dozens of electronic, industrial, avant-jazz, and rock musicians including
Bill Laswell and
Thurston Moore. His playing style is as physical as it is diverse: It ranges from free jazz and angular fusion to thrash, progressive, and death metal, with many stops in between. He also plays his own unique brand of industrial EDM. In his playing and improvising, one can hear trace influences of drummers ranging from
Rashied Ali and
Han Bennink to
Zach Hill,
Gavin Harrison, and
Tomas Haake.
Pándi made his recorded debut in 2007 with
Venetian Snares and co-founded Rope Cosmetology, who released five albums between 2009 and 2012 including Diffusion de la Rue de la Double Identité and Disunion Strips. He is one of the drummers in
the Blood of Heroes, a collaborative, experimental electronic project with
Justin Broadrick,
Bill Laswell,
Submerged,
Enduser,
Dr. Israel, and
KJ Sawka. Their self-titled debut appeared from Ohm Resistance in 2010 (followed by War two years later).
Pándi joined guitarist
Eraldo Bernocchi's doom rock outfit
Obake for a self-titled offering on the RareNoise label in 2011. The following year, the collective
Metallic Taste of Blood, comprised of the drummer and
Bernocchi with ex-
Porcupine Tree bassist
Colin Edwin and pianist/keyboardist
Jamie Saft, issued their self-titled debut on RareNoise. He followed it with the album
One, a trio date from
Ivo Perelman and
Joe Morris.
Pándi,
Saft,
Morris, and bassist
Trevor Dunn issued Black Aces as metal improv group
Slobber Pup in 2013. They recorded Cuts with
Merzbow and
Mats Gustafsson later that year. 2014 saw
Pándi,
Saft, and
Morris collaborate as Red Hill with trumpeter
Wadada Leo Smith. In 2015, a second
Slobber Pup date, titled
Pole Axe, was released, as was
Cuts of Guilt, Cuts Deeper by
Pándi,
Merzbow,
Gustafsson, and guitarist
Thurston Moore. The drummer,
Saft, and
Morris backed trombonist
Roswell Rudd on
Strength & Power, released in the early spring of 2016, and that summer saw the release of
An Untroublesome Defencelessness with
Pándi and guitarist
Keiji Haino.
Even with all the recorded activity,
Pándi toured the globe almost constantly with a dazzling array of ensembles. He kept up the recording pace, though. He was part of a pair of duo projects: with
K.K. Null on Demon Core and the Köhnen Pándi Duo (with electronicist
Jason Köhnen, aka
Bong-Ra). In 2018, the latter pair worked together again under
Bong-Ra's imprimatur on the digital release Antediluvian.
Pándi and Norwegian electro-acoustic multi-instrumentalist
Jon Wesseltoft issued Infinite Vice later that year. In addition, RareNoise released Cuts Up Cuts Out by the quartet with
Merzbow,
Moore, and
Gustafsson.
The drummer's recorded catalog grew considerably in 2019. In addition to touring extensively with a variety of musicians, he formed the trio Cement Shoes alongside Italian bassist
Gonçalo Almeida and keyboardist
Giovanni Di Domenico. Their debut offering, Opus Caementicium, was released by Gaffer Records in January. The critically acclaimed Ceremonial Healing, cut in 2017, was a Record Store Day triple-length release from RareNoise in April. It featured the drummer in the company of saxophonists
Marshall Allen and Danny Ray Thompson (both of the
Sun Ra Arkestra),
Saft, and
Dunn. It also included the final recorded appearances of
Rudd as a guest. The same month,
Pándi and
Wesseltoft issued the album Terreng on Moving Furniture Records. In May, Live at Alternativa by Shibuya Motors was released, featuring
Pándi and drummer
Didi Kern with electronicist Slávo Krekovič and saxist/vocalist Miroslav Tóth. A day later, Trost issued a self-titled offering from the quartet of
Lee Ranaldo,
Jim Jarmusch,
Marc Urselli, and
Pándi. In September,
Merzbow,
Haino, and
Pándi released Become the Discovered, Not the Discoverer on RareNoise. Its group M.O. for the project was, "no limitations, no concepts...just listening and playing."
Later that year, he teamed with Norwegian multi-instrumentalist
Jon Wesseltoft for the vinyl offering Terreng on Moving Furniture. For Record Store Day, RareNoise issued the triple-length Ceremonial Healing, a multigenerational free jazz group recording. It included
Pándi in the company of trombonist
Roswell Rudd (in one of his final sessions),
Marshall Allen, Danny Ray Thompson,
Jamie Saft, and
Trevor Dunn. In the fall of 2020, RareNoise released
Cuts Open. Recorded during the summer of 2018, the trio session between the drummer,
Gustafsson, and
Merzbow offered 87 minutes of visceral music that relied as much on dark atmospherics and summoning dread as it did on the pyrotechnics of the instrumentalists. ~ Thom Jurek