PANTyRAiD

Switching back and forth like the tides, Pantyraid takes a surprisingly playful turn with new single 'Beba'. Everything in this construction depends on suspensions and flux. Rhythm is defined through momentum and - akin to a rubber band - the music has to reach breaking point before it snaps itself back into place.

We see a daring and exciting mix of genres being used as an artist's colour palette to paint a Van Gogh-esque swirl of dreamlike formations. Nothing feels out of place or inorganic but instead as separate elements of a storm coalescing to rage through the night. Dancehall lyrical interruptions and bump and grind beats converge with cute minimalist vocals and chiptune-type moments to remind you of a pretence at childlike innocence.

Distorted dubstep bass pushes its way through your body like an aorta pulsating life force through your system. Lazily swaggering forward, this track has the self-assured confidence of a Komodo dragon that allows it to take its time without ever feeling the need to rush and spoil its cool.

A hi-hat drum machine defines the sound of the more chilled out B-side. Reverse staccato rhythms and esoteric keyboards mix up the timbres and end up producing a richer, fuller sound. Though repetitive at times, this single from Pantyraid is likely to keep dubstep vibrating through your body all summer long.

Rating: 3.5/5
- http://www.dailymusicguide.com/Reviews/pantyraid-beba-single-review-24072009-0108.aspx

Pantyraid is the project created by two American producers from West Coast. Martin Folb (aka MartyParty) invited his now partner-in-crime Josh Mayer (aka Ooah) to cooperate in creation of Pantyraid sometime in 2005.

For someone like me, who is not really familiar with dubstep scene, Yanks delivered the best electronic experiment this year! Album starts with three energetic tunes progressing into relaxing ring of ‘Dreams’, building up by that the underground, mysterious atmosphere, which automatically works on our imagination. The CD is full of ambient, crunk or hip-hop influences, and not only American as I can easily recognise a bit of London's Camden Town style. Generally the whole layered composition is full of lavishly wobbling bass, grimy deep beats and constant variations of sounds. The best tunes are: ‘Enter the Machine’, ‘Headcase’, ‘Like That’, ‘One Mo!’ and ‘Upset’, but I would like to single out a track ‘Beba’, which I like so much for his hip-hop sample „This is the wickedest introduction in the whole world”.
- http://www.soundrevolt.com/pantyraid-the-sauce-reviews510.html

PANTyRAiD are Josh Mayer aka Ooah of The Glitch Mob and Marty Folb aka Marty Party. They make brilliantly futuristic hip hop, in their own words: "PANTyRAiD is a true cross over project - hip hop, dubstep, electro-crunk... all done right with hard booty shaking instrumentation" I can only confirm the accuracy of this description.

The Sauce, full-length album of PANTyRAiD eagerly awaited by their fans will drop officially next Monday 21 September 2009 on Marine Parade but you can grab it already from Bleep (look for a link at the bottom).

In The Sauce, PANTyRAiD delivers a very unique and original ‘made in West Coast’ blend, floating between diverse styles of electronic music with ease and craft. Crunky, wonky, heavy, spacey …. one can add many more adjectives here. It’s quite difficult to describe their music in a few words, which is always a good sign. The shattered, looped and glitched hip hop beats colliding with heavy dubstep bass, riding a slow-mo rollercoaster of beautiful, oneiric melodies reminding me of cinematic score or android dreams. Electronic in form and glitchy in contents, with quite widely expanded instrumentation and great focus on details. Heavy, disturbing and unsettling, yet so fragile. No two songs resemble each other but all of them sum up to the top-notch whole. For me personally, The Sauce is the ultimate listening experience. Pardon my bombastic statements but this is how I feel hearing Dreaming, Worship the Sun, Enter the Machine or Upset.

The album starts with Crunculicious. Very sleek, crunky beat with lazer synths, ass-kicking snares and lots of music ‘maneuvers’ along the way. Welcome to the vast instrumentarium of PANTyRAiD! Moving to beautiful piano in Upset, the listener is flooded with very versatile beat and nicely deconstructed glitched bassline. African chants add a really weird dimension to this track. It sounds as if you heard this somewhere but cannot remember where and when. PANTyRAiD seems to open a hidden path to some archetype or a strong music mem. This one will definitely be heavily rinsed by DJ’s and fans. Marty Party and Ooah follow the similar concept but with more epic touch in Worship the sun. Ethno-oriented bomb, where tribal gathering of sun worshippers (not necessarily archaic ones) collides with mutated hip-hop beats and infectious acapellas creating a fantastic electronic voyage in the process. These guys really know how to build mesmerizing and powerful sonic landscapes. Dreaming is my personal best track of the The Sauce. One can definitely hear inspiration from former solo productions of Ooah and the title speaks for itself. Digital dream full of artificial liquidity and low-key frequencies. The music of sentient AI traversing extensive virtual data fields in search of L.I.F.E. One of the best ambient (yes!) tracks I’ve heard in ages.

After a short trip into calm territories, PANTyRAiD’ers show their music in full gear in two mid-tempo tunes. One mo! attacks the listener with disturbing, glitched synths, raw and unsettling rhythm in a heavy shit bomb! Just wait when acapella drops! It’s funktastic! Headcase on the other hand is pure glitch hop heaven with very characteristic wobbly bassline (the real PantyRaid trademark) and fantastic melody. Beba Be ba Be Be Be ba Be ba, infectious vocal job in a nasty hip-hop track, a real crowd-pleaser. This time, dirty bass is crunked to the max, hooking the listeners instantaneously.

Enter the machine simply overwhelms. Great track, for me personally the tip of the release next to Dreaming. This slow wobble and ultra distorted bassline is just my thang! It builds and twists like a snake. Sounds like dubstep but there are much more layers in this single track than in 10 typical dubstep tunes. Again, this music has space, it’s definitely 3D or even 4D. Too fine to do time - dreamy and mystifying female voice in a multi-textured composition with crispy synth-driven beat and ear-catching melody. Just listen to what’s going on at the front in the middle and in the background of this track. Pantyraid switch tempos, beats and drums with such an ease while at the same time producing tight and coherent journey through IDM / electronic seas. I really dig their sensitivity and touch. Like that - downtempo, head-nodding bravado with extremely glitched bassline. And this girly voice sample is totally weird, yet very warm, tempting and inviting like a strange attractor. I nearly fell in love with her. I wish I was the producer and had the appropriate vocabulary to describe all the nuances, tempo-shifts, broken rhythm and many synth layers one can hear in this composition. Finally, Our second chance. Marty Party and Ooah again showing their top-notch production skills and a wide array of instrumentation creating multi-layered sonic textures in a kind of unreal, futuristic heavy bass sonata. I could not think of a better crowning of this absolutely outstanding piece of music.

This record really grows on you - http://glitch.fm/node/65

Djs Martin Folb (aka MartyParty) and Josh Mayer (Ooah) of the Glitch Mob, are coming out with a new ‘glitch hop’ debut album on September 21. ‘Dub’-hopping party people everywhere will rejoice to hear the collaboration between the two talented mix artists. Although there is a unified and coherent instrumental composition throughout, the tracks are still interesting as separate entities. The foundation is solid for the lovers of hot and heavy hip hop and the beats are vibrant and provocative. “Crunkalicious” and “Upset” could be embraced by hardcore poetry jam fans; songs “Enter the Machine” and “Our Second Chance” luxuriously ambient and reminiscent of Aphex Twin’s Richard James’ innovative style. “Headcase” is my favorite because of sheer dance-ability. It’s got personality plus and made me (a white girl with no street in her) bounce.

Strangely enough, while absorbing the album, immersing myself into the flow, thinking about how to put my general impressions into coherent expressions, I found one thought coming into the forefront of my mind time and time again: Samus Aran exploring Tallon IV. Imagine her, if you will, cavorting through underground caves and defeating Space Pirates while the sleek and uber-sophisticated spacesuit is able to morph into a high-speed ball of destruction. Anyone who has ever played through the Metroid Trilogy knows exactly what I’m talking about. Now, if that imagery can serve as a litmus test in the world of video game nerds who adore electronic hip-hop: PANTyRAiD will be a massive success.

I honestly didn’t think I was going to enjoy this but, once I pumped up the volume, I not only enjoyed the ride, I was willing to shell out $1,800 on custom chrome rims on the way re-establish Freaknik.
- http://www.staticmultimedia.com/music/reviews/pantyraid_-_the_sauce

Meet PantyRaid. The new producer-dance-hit-maker duo is comprised of New York transplant from South Africa Martin Folb (known more popularly by his fans as Marty Party) and Los Angeles DJ Josh Mayer from The Glitch Mob. The two have been friends for years but in 2005 the two decided to get serious about making music together and thus became PantyRaid. Their much-anticipated first full-length album “The Sauce” dropped last Tuesday.

The album is strikingly different from most dance-genre LPs hitting the market. Instead of a mash up of your already favorite club hits, PantyRaid experiments with an electronic and classical fusion (though the voice of pop princess Britney Spears does make an appearance on “Too Fine To Do Time”). “The Sauce” is a blend of masterfully orchestrated electronic sounds and audio tricks to create grimy beats and extrinsic melodies.

Folb and Mayer created a lot of “The Sauce” by trading tracks back and forth via e-mail (considering they make their home bases 3,000 miles away from each other). Folb told Blast the process was still simple since he and Mayer both share the same vision for PantyRaid.

“Sometimes it [started] with a song I wrote, sometimes it started with a song he wrote. We’ll just find something that sounds like PantyRaid — we both know what that is — and we just trade it back and forth. We both have the same taste, so it’s easy,” Folb explained from Brooklyn.

When asked about the seemingly darker overtones of “The Sauce,” Folb defends that it was never intentional for the album to be dark, but to evoke an emotional reaction.

“It’s emo for sure. Everything we do is emo. We’re very emotional. I didn’t intentionally sit down to write a dark record though. We are very cheerful people, just deep and emotional, I guess,” said Folb with a laugh.

“The Sauce” was released on Adam Freeland’s Marine Parade Records. Freeland fell in love with the sound immediately after hearing some of the tracks Folb and Mayer had put together. PantyRaid also appears on Freeland’s remix of his June release “Cope” which Folb said was very exciting for PantyRaid.

With “The Sauce” being touted as “the future of electronic music” by magazines like Clash and IDJ, it seems many more exciting things shall be coming up for PantyRaid. The first single “Beba” has also been creating a lot of buzz and is one of Folb’s favorite songs on the record (and Blast’s too).

“I like ‘Beba’ because it was the first song I wrote that I knew was PantyRaid. [I thought], “Oh shit, this is a hit.”

As far as leading the electronic world into the future, PantyRaid doesn’t really believe in trying to fit in a genre.
“You can decide on a genre or whatever to put us in, but it’s not going to work out,” said Folb confidently, “It’s just our music, a culmination of what we’ve lived and learned together.”

You can learn more about PantyRaid at their myspace (www.myspace.com/pantyraidmusic) or pick up “The Sauce” at any major music retailer.
Megan Vick is Blast's music editor. She is a music industry major and journalism minor at Northeastern University. You can follow her on Twitter. - http://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/entertainment/music/getting-to-know/2009/09/getting-to-know-pa

If you’re connected or immersed in the remix/electronica culture, chances are high that you’ve heard of Marty Folb. You may know him better by his stage name, MartyParty. Born and raised in South Africa, Folb sought to include the sounds of his birthplace with west coast club beats. Soon after diving into music production, he released his debut album Walkerville to the West Coast.
Folb has now moved on to create PANTyRAiD with his good friend, Josh Mayer (AKA Ooah of Glitch Mob). Together, they’ve created an album that breaks through the stale recycled formula of most dance music and moves with fresh beats. Ideas from crunk, hip hop, electronica, and many other genres have given the group a new recipe for club music that succeeds immensely.
How did you and Ooah come to form PANTyRAiD?
We met socially. I always knew he was a good DJ. He came into my studio and said, “What type of music is that, man?” I remixed one of his projects. We worked on creating hip hop for the ladies. We wanted to create sexy music. Josh [Mayer AKA Ooah] came up with the name. We have really similar tastes and the same vision.
What were the main sources of inspiration for The Sauce?
A lot of the songs were written in Costa Rica on vacation. I have some property there and I throw a festival there every year. I invited Josh to play at the main party as one of the DJs. We started to write a lot of edgy material there. The sun, the tropics, and nature inspired a lot of where we were going. When we got back to New York and L.A., we spent much time going out. The whole city inspired the remaining songs on it. It’s a combination between nature, the party, the sun, dark elements, and the city. It’s combining together everything we love as human beings. We’re trying to come up with words to describe the music. People have really struggled to figure out what genre to put it in. We’re kind of on the doorstep of a whole new genre with PANTyRAiD. I’m hearing a lot of producers are trying to duplicate or emulate it in their tracks. I think PANTyRAiD is really good for people because it’s bringing back a little more of the happiness and the light. Club music doesn’t always need to have such dark themes.
To me, “BeBa” is the one of the best tracks on the album. Can you speak a little about how you guys created that song?
That was a song I wrote in Costa Rica. The “be ba” part was generated out of an old synthesizer that’s like a vocoder. My mother always used to say “be ba” when I was a kid. So I started screwing around with it and it sounded really good. It started with just the “be ba” sample coming out of it. Then when I was hanging out with Josh, we came up with the bass line. That track just kills it on every dance floor I’ve ever played it at. People just freak out when it comes on. It’s one of those tracks that we believe will transition to mainstream hip hop. It’s a whole new and fresh kind of beat in the hip hop world.
What was it like to be included in the remix compilation of Adam Freeland’s record, Cope?
He asked us to do the remix of “Do You”. We did that also in Costa Rica. That track also kills every time we play it. People really love it. He asked us to do that and he asked Joker as well. We’re the only two artists to do a remix of that track. There’s a couple more he’s going to ask us to do over the next few weeks.
Which ones is he going to ask you to do?
“We Want Your Soul”, I think, is one. I’m not 100 percent sure though. It’s the main single from the album. We’re working on a whole lot of remixes for people right now. I’m personally talking to Massive Attack about doing one and that’s really exciting. Remixing is one of our strengths. Josh is probably one of the best remixers in the world. I’m a really fab producer. When we sit down together, we can remix a song in a matter of hours. I think people are really responding to that and I think PANTyRAiD is going to be seen as one of the key remixers out there.
What are you up to for the rest of the year?
Touring everywhere. For my personal career, I’m playing all over the country. For the fall, I’m pretty much traveling every week. We’re dropping the PANTyRAiD album on October 21. In January and February, we’re going to get together and write our second album. We’re probably going to do it in L.A. The next album’s probably going to have a lot more hip-hoppy tunes on it like “BeBa”. They’ll also be more melodic stuff like “Dreaming”.
Why should people who have never heard of PANTyRAiD or either of you be interested in buying The Sauce?
I think of The Sauce as the first real album I’ve heard in a long time. The whole reason albums were made was to create a journey and an emotional experience. Now, albums are more like a couple of good tracks with a bunch of rubbish songs. The whole music industry is very aware that the album concept has been abused over the last five to ten years. No one really buys albums anymore. We just buy singles off iTunes. We decided to go bac - http://consequenceofsound.net/2009/09/24/interview-marty-folb-aka-martyparty-of-pantyraid/

PANTyRAiD have described their sound as hip hop, dub ste and electro-crunk. Well, that’s most of the bases covered then.

On the face of it, there’s not a great deal to Beba. An intriguing intro, that’s not helped by a frankly clichéd vocal, eventually builds into quite an eerie, and slightly menacing hip hop song. The bass underpins the song and gives it real weight. What lets the song down is a mid section which is little more than lots of blips and drips.

Overall, taken with Get The Money, there’s a curious ambient feel to the whole package. Try imagining a demonically possessed Future Sound of London, and that might give you some idea of what’s going on here. - http://www.music-news.com/ShowReview.asp?nCID=0&H=PANTyRAiD-Beba-single-review&nReviewID=4726&nType=

Sharp, snapping and frozen beats tear into ones mind yet its structure and groove make this one of the hottest tracks on this album. LA’s Glitch Mob has splintered both literally and musically as these shattered hip hop beats take huge strides forward for lovers of Dilla, Prefuse, Flylo and the more recent wUnKy upstarts of Paul White, Rustie and Bullion. We talk about this a lot. Apologies if you aren’t quite so into it but it is a bit of a developing movement and we are on sonic safari. Rar. - CLASHMAGAZINE.COM

“The sound of underground US hip hop getting to grips with dubstep and coming out of the collision rather well.A rich injection of transatlantic new blood into dubstep’s gene pool.” - MIXMAG

The sound of underground US hip-hop getting to grips with dub-step and coming out of the collision rather well. A rich injection of transatlantic new blood into dub-step’s gene pool.”
– Mixmag

PANTyRAiD is the product of two music producers who met on the West Coast, brought together by their shared appreciation for well-produced dance music.

Coming together sometime in 2005, both frequent faces throughout the West Coast scene, DJ-duo Martin Folb (aka MartyParty) invited his now partner-in-crime Josh Mayer (aka Ooah, and one third of The Glitch Mob) to his Manifesto Gathering – a small music festival he and friends organize annually in Mal Pais, Costa Rica. Bonding over a shared appreciation for the art of songwriting, rather than the typical “club track” production, the two inevitably set off to write material together, forming under the moniker PANTyRAiD. Due to geographic circumstances, the two began by sending tracks back and forth online, finally joining forces face-to-face during many studio sessions in Los Angeles where they wrote the first part of their debut album, “The Sauce.” Transplanting to Brooklyn, New York in 2008, the duo completed the second half of their album shortly thereafter.

PANTyRAiD creates songs that each hold their own unique character and intention, with the ability to drift over into both the classical and electronic genres. With constant variations in beat, and an overwhelming palette of instrumentation, audio tricks, melodies, and techniques, PANTyRAiD’s production reflects close attention to detail, taking their audience along a lavishly ambientelectronic journey. The fusion between Ooah and MartyParty has ignited a movement that revisits the power of melodic and instrumental composition, together inventing a formula for producing intense club tracks that unite gorgeous,electronic soundscapes with hard-hitting, grimy beats which reference hip-hop and dub-step, with experimental, global sounds that resonate throughout. The result is a new flavor of urban beat – a fresh, new, sexysound that redefines the power, relevance, and longevity of electronic music.

Upcoming PANTyRAiD Dates
September 25 – 103 Harriet w/ Benga & Martyn – San Francisco, CA
October 8 – Cervantes w/ Rusko – Denver, CO

“Beba” featured on PANTyRAiD’s debut release The Sauce, is a “sonic safari” with “snapping and frozen beats [that] tear into ones mind, yet its structure and groove make this one of the hottest tracks on [the] album. LA’s Glitch Mob has splintered both literally and musically as these shattered hip hop beats take huge strides forward for lovers of Dilla, Prefuse, Flylo, and the more recent wUnKy upstarts of Paul White, Rustie and Bullion” – Clash Magazine

The Sauce will be available digitally September 21
(Marine Parade)

“PANTyRAiD forced us to do just that after we spunked our sonic loads over their jacking, lysergic beats. This music will shatter every notion of what the future willsound like. Utterly captivating.” – CLASH Magazine

“PANTyRAiD have a sound truly of their own that will stick to your ears without you realizing. Beautiful.” – 8/10, IDJ Magazine

“PantyRaid sound unlike anything you’ll have heard before; mixing dubstep, electro and futuristic, instrumental hip-hop into a very special, rather freaky end product…sounds like Flying Lotus covering a Benga track…it gets weirder, less definable and more intoxicating with every listen. Wow.”
– 9/10, Tillate Magazine - http://mvremix.com/urban_blogs/2009/08/26/pantyraid-brings-the-sauce-september-21/