Peterdeadpan

Probably this month’s most clever artist name, this is technically a demo from the Toronto-based Mr Pan. Starting out with the Amon Tobin-ish break beat flavour of "Revolving Door,” this settles into a nice drum & bass groove. It does sound slightly behind the curve in some places, for example the Brazilian flavour of "Bicyclette” and "Yogi’s Boo Boo,” with its weird screaming, has "cutting room floor” written all over it, but then this is a demo after all. Tracks like "Campaign Promises,” with a faux-Chilean flavour, and the electric piano-driven "Open to Persuasion.” have a melodic sensibility that screams for more attention. On the whole, there are some great ideas here, and it’d be interesting to see what this guy could do with a label or a distributor backing him. Bonus points are given for submitting the CD in a five-inch floppy disk cover — I doubt it’s a reference to "Blue Monday,” but it’s a nice touch nonetheless.