Биография Pantaleimon

PANTALEIMON

(pan-ta-lay-mon), the name of Lyra’s dæmon in Philip Pullman’s ‘Northern Lights’, is also the pseudonym of English musician and songwriter Andria Degens (that’s, dee-jens). Creating simple, haunting and beautiful music that floats like a distant galaxy, hanging somewhere in the cosmos between meditative purity and celestial psychedelia, it seems somehow fitting to know that Andria was born prematurely. Occupying an internal terrain between all things overtly tangible, Pantaleimon’s music plays out like an intuitive pilgrimage of the soul, replete with luminous shafts of hope and salvation. Her mostly instrumental debut album, ‘Trees Hold Time’ (1999), is a hypnotic, minimalist homage on Appalachian Dulcimer to two and half years of peregrination throughout Southeast Asia. Five years later, she found the ethereal accord of her voice to gild the impressionistic songs of her second album, ‘Mercy Oceans’, with hues of a simplistic and timeless tonality. “After ‘Trees Hold Time’, Degens reflects, “I felt I had nothing else to give to the world musically, but then the channel opened again and out came the material for ‘Cloudburst’ and ‘Mercy Oceans’.”

Preceding this, in between practising and teaching Ashtanga yoga, Andria appeared with Wire (live at the Clapham Grand, 1992), and on The Dirty Three’s ‘Horse Stories’ album in 1996, before going on to collaborate with the likes of Hugo Race, Jeff Zentner, Current 93 (‘Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain’ and ‘Black Ships Ate The Sky’), Strings of Consciousness, Susan Stenger’s (Band of Susans) ‘Soundtrack For An Exhibition’, Irr. App. (Ext.), Nurse With Wound and Marc Pilley’s Hobotalk.

Although her personal creative resurgence, as Pantaleimon, propelled her across Europe performing at shows with Antony and the Johnsons, Baby Dee, Lightning Bolt, James Blackshaw, Six Organs Of Admittance, Current 93, 16 Horsepower, Matt Sweeney and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Andria also carved out time to pursue other lines of creative flight, including her musical contribution to Cam Archer’s (director of Pantaleimon’s ‘We Love’ video) film, ‘Wild Tigers I Have Known’, as well as providing narration for a series of Archer’s short films (featuring on the Cinemad Almanac 2009 DVD).

Always keen to play life with an open hand, in 2008, for ‘Heart Of The Sun’, Andria gave her album ‘Mercy Oceans’ back to the universe, entrusting artists such as Andrew WK, Stephen O’Malley, CarterTutti, Lilum and Fovea Hex, to ‘remix’ her songs. Listening to the finished tracks on headphones whilst lying on the floor in the dark, Andria arranged the songs to the imagined narrative arc of dawn to dusk – an existential allegory taking in the cover of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s ‘Even If Love’, which had lamentably not made it onto the original incarnation of ‘Mercy Oceans’. This release was quickly followed up with her beautifully sublime hymnal, ‘Tall Trees’, a limited CD EP for the Abaton Book Company.

Andria Degens is currently writing material for the new Pantaleimon record, as well as amassing and gestating ideas for a brand new project in an equally brand new direction.

Melissa Osbourne.

Discography

Releases:

Trees Hold Time (Album) ◄ (4 versions) Durtro ... 1999

Change My World (CD, EP) PanDurto 2003

Under The Water (7", S/Sided, Ltd, cle) Bluesanct 2006

Cloudburst (EP) ◄ (2 versions) Durtro ... 2007

Mercy Oceans (CD, Album) Durtro, Jnana Records 2007

Heart Of The Sun (CD, Album) Durtro, Jnana Records 2008

Tall Trees (CDr, MiniAlbum) Abaton Book Company 2008

Live in Barcelona (download album) Durtro Jnana 2009

Appears On:

Sleep Has His House (Album) ◄ (3 versions) The Magical Bird In Th... Durtro ... 2000

Чёрные Корабли Поглотили Небо (Album) ◄ (2 versions) Идумея Soyuz Music ... 2006

Tracks Appear On:

Brain In The Wire - Disc A (CD, Comp) The Magical Bird In Th... Wire Magazine, Brainwashed Recordings 2000

MM (CD, Ltd) Bowed And Parted World Serpent 2000

Brain In The Wire (3xCD, Comp, Ltd) The Magical Bird In Th... Brainwashed Recordings 2002

Not Alone (5xCD, Comp) Change My World (Alter... Durtro, Jnana Records 2006

Monopoly Of Brilliance (CD, Comp) I Am Southern Records 2007

Peace (For Mom) (2xCD, Comp, Car) Idumaea Brainwashed Recordings 2008

The Wire Tapper 20 (CD, Comp) At Dawn (Vogel) (Andre... Wire Magazine 2008

Transmissions From Sinai (CD, Comp) At Dawn Arthur 2009

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