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Hailing from Northern France just like his Club Cheval peers, Victor Watel aka Panteros666 started doing music as a teenage drummer. He went to a jazz school in his area, played in various dance-punk outfits in the mid noughties, and soon developed a personal, enhanced sound environment. But he’s also been continuously fed by many other kinds of digital commodities : YouTube vids of course, and also gifs and jpgs found through extended scrolling sessions on self-generated pics websites. He eventually got rid of his jazz teacher, bought a cheap vintage drumbox from the nineties – a Boss Dr Groove –, mostly used in eurodance, and started trying some percussive stuff.
Far from being your average dance producer, Panteros acts as an archeologist of our multimedia era since he realized his DJ and producer activities were only two of many ways to interact with today’s world. He’s been gaining exposure with viral videos starring his Kamel Toe character (now on French cable TV), and follows a promising career as a freelance copy writer in advertising. A digital-era, moustache-sporting Don Draper, he also makes interactive sample-based websites for some of his tracks (check « Enio Moticone » to have a glance at it) and uploads all his productions on YouTube, complete with absurdist, psychedelic video edits. He’s basically wired on the emerging, contemporary Internet culture.
As a music-maker, Panteros feels fascinated by creating transgender/transgenic aural objects. His first track, Kegstand, released by Sound Pellegrino in late 2010, was a true mutation in effect – sounds taken from the Dutch jumpstyle songbook locked inside a UK funky frame. The main intention is basically to produce tracks that can both entertain your mind and talk to your body, to make dancefloor ammunition with a twisted, meta angle, working like comments on what’s generally thought about dance music. His material sounds physical and nervous, but also offers much to (joyfully) think about.
On his last tune, a multimedia YouTube experience called « Saint-Louis », Panteros pushes this digimodernist ethic even further : post-Detroit washes, UKG vocal cut-ups, minimal and trancey arrangements, techno kickdrums, and some over-the-top break. The guy really is in « demo » mode right now, but keeps it low profile. He just wants to put together things that aren’t supposed to be put together, and this touching, cute obsession works so well you immediately want to hear more from him.
Text by Etienne Menu