Pantha Du Prince – The Bell Laboratory

Art & Culture

Ableton have just announced a new trio of artist films featuring Pantha Du Prince and The Bell Laboratory and we've got premiere of a pair of the behind the scenes films.

A New Sequence follows Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory as they prepare and perform their version of Terry Riley’s “In C”. We join the musicians at early rehearsals in Oslo and see Hendrik Weber (Pantha du Prince) muse on the origins of his art and his current collaboration with the Norwegian percussion ensemble. As the action shifts to London, the technical challenges of reinterpreting a major work such as “In C” loom ever larger. The film culminates with a triumphant performance at the Barbican Center, where the spirited musical interaction between Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory is enhanced by the eyepopping visuals of The Joshua Light Show.

The two subsequent films explore some of the technical and musical aspects of the collaboration and the interplay between Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory’s electronic and acoustic instruments.

In the first, Hendrik shows how he uses software and hardware effects to process the instruments from The Bell Laboratory and sequence his own synths and drum machines while on stage. Plus, we learn how Hendrik used cue points in Live to build a playable arrangement of the instructionbased score of ‘In C’.

Then, Heming Valebjørg of The Bell Laboratory shows us the range of percussion instruments used by the group for “In C”. In mesmerising performance and studio clips The Bell Laboratory demonstrate their mastery of everything from tubular bells to balafon and beyond.

LISTEN

Pantha Du Prince & The Bell Laboratory: A New Sequence

Watch this video of Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory as they prepared to perform Terry Riley’s “In C” at London’s Barbican Theatre. Watch the beautiful and inspiring results in this video.

Working with the world-class percussion players of The Bell Laboratory, Hendrik Weber forges a fusion of his background in solo electronic music, his passion for experimental and minimal music, and a desire to collaborate with acoustic musicians.

Using Ableton Live for both electronic sounds and processing acoustic percussion, Hendrik and The Bell Laboratory recorded Elements of Light, a collaborative album, and played a series of sold-out shows in respected venues all over the world.

Pantha Du Prince & The Bell Laboratory: A New Sequence

Watch this video of Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory as they prepared to perform Terry Riley’s “In C” at London’s Barbican Theatre. Watch the beautiful and inspiring results in this video.

Working with the world-class percussion players of The Bell Laboratory, Hendrik Weber forges a fusion of his background in solo electronic music, his passion for experimental and minimal music, and a desire to collaborate with acoustic musicians.

Using Ableton Live for both electronic sounds and processing acoustic percussion, Hendrik and The Bell Laboratory recorded Elements of Light, a collaborative album, and played a series of sold-out shows in respected venues all over the world.
The Bell Laboratory: Instruments

Take a close-up look at the instruments used by The Bell Laboratory, a group of percussionists who collaborated with Pantha du Prince on the album, Elements of Light, and a series of sold-out shows around the world.

Here, Bell Laboratory member Heming Valebjørg presents the various mallet instruments played, from the shiny metallic timbres of tubular bells to the softer sounds of the balafon.
Pantha Du Prince: Live Setup

Hendrik Weber aka Pantha du Prince provides an exclusive look at how his performance setup uses Ableton Live both for sequencing hardware synths, and to process the sounds coming from his collaborators in the percussion group, The Bell Laboratory.