What is a Blackbox? A last will & testament? A keep in the heart of a castle? Amidst the pandemics and pandamonia of 2020, crawling inside one of these sounds tempting I have to admit. Well, it’s also the title of a new track with self-directed video clip from Montreal-based French multimedia artist Pun Collins (real name: Axel Lacan, which is an unfairly cool name).

The music sees a distant moan of auto-tuned chanting, piercing its way through a rumbling belly of samples and apocalyptic T2 synth tones. The video is a slow zoom out through a mysterious luminescent purple circle, floating before a portal, through which a mysterious shadowy watcher is viewing scenes of chaos, nature, and humanity; cool, unshaking, and dark. I guess “any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental” should be included with this clip, as I almost feel it could be me at home spinning Pun Collins excellent new album up for order tomorrow (Juneteenth Bandcamp Day!) on Them There Records, scrolling through news wordlessly.

Grasp an exclusive first watch of the clip here:

Blackbox is taken from Pun Collins forthcoming new album, ‘Dying Together‘, just up for pre-order today!

Picking up where the minimalist-pop of 2018’s ‘Lunar Influence’ left off, this one purports to explore “the peripheries of post-genre dance music for an optimistic perspective on the end times”. Which is nice.

It’s a thoroughly abstract and varied soundworld throughout ‘Dying Together‘, integrating synths, beats, ambient dread, and traces of pop, soul, and funk woven through a psychedelic beatscape showing Pun Collins at the peak of his powers. It’s moody and bleak, yet uplifting and colourful all at once. Well worth checking out.

‘Dying Together’ sees Lacan deliver the principal Pun Collins’ punch more clearly and concisely than ever before. The execution of balance between narrative and concept, production and instrumentation, and space and saturation illustrates a new level of intricacy for the Montreal based producer, artist, and filmmaker.