When Hendrik Weber isn't playing bass for Stella or making tracks as Gluhen4 or Panthel, he's producing haunted microhouse as
Pantha du Prince. This is Weber's first album under the alias, following a 12" from 2002. The reasons why he's on
Lawrence and
Turner's Dial label are made apparent right off the bat. Not unlike
Lawrence or
Carsten Jost, Weber's tracks are equally fit for the club and as a companion for staring out of your bedroom window on a lonely overcast day. Cavernous 4/4 rhythms are joined by downcast elements -- subtle clicks and pops, gentle swarms of synthetic strings, snow-blind keyboards, dulled-out chimes. Weber's own infatuation with '80s miserablists is often in effect; while
Lawrence has swiped
Morrissey lyrics for track titles, Weber either approximates or lifts the sounds of the frostbitten guitars from early
Cocteau Twins and
Cure records. "Eisregen" twinkles darkly, while "Circle Glider" -- its frantic palsy coming off like a missing track from
Herbert's
Globus Mix, Vol. 5: Letsallmakemistakes mix -- opens and closes with samples from
the Chills' fatalist classic "Pink Frost." The concluding "Glycerine," cloaked in midnight fog, is the eeriest of all, with panning ripples inducing further turbulence. A deep male voice intones like it's spinning a ghost story: "So we went down that way to the castle/Everything was...foggy." If it hadn't already been made readily apparent, Dial has positioned itself as the premier goth (not goth) label. This album challenges
Lawrence's
The Absence of Blight as the label's best to date. [Within a few months of release, the album was already difficult to find on CD, but Dial re-pressed the disc in 2010.]