贅沢 International – Pantheon Project
Recommendation: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mallsoft! What, you didn’t see that coming? Surprise! Pantheon Project is a nine-track extended-play produced by 贅沢 International1, one of many projects released under the Telepathic Data Storage umbrella by matdmoon.2 It starts off with a bass funk intro that sounds straight from Seinfeld; the majority of the other eight songs have a layer of static and vague echoes to the music that sound like the PA of a shopping mall. It’s standard mallsoft tropes, but they meld very well with the samples chosen here. Most tracks have segues between movements as if the record is changing over on the automatic system; cereaʟ used a similar technique on 2015’s Opening Soon EP. The first half of “Rain モールスカイラインを通って” features a saxophone solo cover of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine”, sounding precisely like the kind of bargain-bin cover albums from which muzak spawns.
Tracklist
1. Discount Items // 50％オフ – (3:11)3
2. I b u y , s o t h e r e f o r e , I c o n s u m e ☯ – (1:58)
3. Dream Beach // ビーチドリーム – (2:48)4
4. Pantheon パワーパック – (2:53)5
5. Rain モールスカイラインを通って – (2:51)6
6. WebShopping – (0:27)
7. Housewares – (1:57)
8. Palms I – (3:23)
9. Palms II – (1:22)
1Japanese translation: “Luxury International”
2… who co-owns Online Records with Hantasi. They have released a lot of music.
3Japanese translation: “Discount items // 50% off”
4Japanese translation: “Dream beach // beach dream”
5Japanese translation: “Pantheon power pack”
6Japanese translation: “Rain (through the mall skylight)