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Disenchanted with the confines of the corporate world, Pandhora left their respective engineering jobs in 2015 to embark on a sonic quest to fuse psychedelia and electronica with moods of melancholia, mystery, and euphoria. Their goal: to craft in music the vision they have for personal and collective empowerment—the curation of dreams, the embrace of freedom, and reverence for our planetary home.
We have had the pleasure of interviewing them and this has been the result.
How and when did you become interested in music? And electronic music?
Music has always been a major part of our lives. We have been avid listeners since our teenage years! We practiced piano and guitar as kids and always looked up to music artists. Electronic music came later, around 2010 with the rise of Dubstep and EDM into the mainstream. We discovered electronic music on the radio, at parties, and online, for example through Boiler Room. At this time, we discovered artists such as Nicolas Jaar, David August, Maceo Plex.
Where are you from/how did you get into music?
Amine is from Tunisia and Rémi is from France. We got into music during university years. We started producing music in 2013 and founded Pandhora in 2015 once we graduated. It’s been our full-time occupation since summer 2018! We both didn’t feel comfortable working in corporate environments and took a chance at making music full-time. We are grateful to be on this path and for everyone who supported us into making this a reality!
How is your sound evolving?
Lately, we’ve been influenced by the sounds of the 80’s, namely funk and disco! Blending these styles with Electronic music has been a rewarding experience. It’s a great match with our progressive and psychedelic background. It gave a fresh and edgier touch to our live performances, we’ve had so much fun playing on stage these past few months.
What artists and genres do you like to listen to these days?
Amine has been obsessing over Hermanos Gutiérrez, L’impératrice and John Summit to name a few! Remi has been re-discovering 90’s bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring as well as recent staples of Indie like Gorillaz, and Empire of The Sun! We have quite varied musical tastes and always like to explore new territories. It’s an important part of our daily lives.
How do you think your music impact your listeners?
Our recorded and live music are different. In the studio, we experiment with diverse tempos and genres. When we play live, we cater the music selection to the venue, the set-time, the crowd… Since we usually play at night, we select the grooviest of our songs, and often remix our music to be dance-floor ready.
What projects are you working on right now?
In the past few weeks, we finished the last songs of our first album Evasion. This LP conveys ideas of freedom and self-exploration. At the moment, the songs are being mixed and mastered. We can’t wait to release this album in July and present it to our community. We’ve been working on it for the past three years during our travels and it’s very rewarding to finally share it with you.
What can you tell us about your latest work?
We just started working on a few new songs for our second album. One of them is named ‘Let Go’, it features a heartfelt text about the struggles of an anxious person. We feel it’s important to share this part of ourselves as some of you may go through similar experiences. Another one is ‘On Danse’ and describes the experience of someone going out clubbing every weekend to escape the boredom of a 9-to-5 corporate routine.
Do you feel confident now to play a more experimental sound?
Improvisation has always been part of our live show. We love to experiment with new sounds and see how the audience reacts. We feel our sound is evolving without boundaries. We’re constently crafting our sound signature (yet we try to keep it accessible)
We all know that the digital revolution has affected sales, but has it affected creativity?
We have embraced the digital revolution to the fullest. We love to have all our tools in-the-box and be able to make music from anywhere in the world. This is a game-changer for us. It also helped minimize the equipment we carry with us on tour. Regarding social media, it creates new challenges but a great opportunity to express our creativity through content creation.
