Daniel Arthur Panjwaneey, an innovative music producer from Karachi, who goes by moniker Alien Panda Jury, is doing terrific things. For those of us who follow indie music, he is one of its most accomplished wizards. Known as ‘Danny P’ among friends and industry insiders,
Daniel Arthur Panjwaneey aka Alien Panda Jury. Photo by Humayun M
MUSICMIX
Karachi-based music producer Daniel Arthur Panjwaneey selected
for the 2017 edition of Border Movement Residency in Berlin.
Daniel Arthur Panjwaneey, an innovative music producer from Karachi, who goes by moniker Alien Panda Jury, is doing terrific things. For those of us who follow indie music, he is one of its most accomplished wizards. Known as ‘Danny P’ among friends and industry insiders, the soft-spoken artist, always down-to-earth during our interactions, creates music that is expansive, experimental and miraculous. An active contributor to the indie music community, he has several impressive solo EP releases to his credit such as Sound, Science, Love (2013) and New Earth (2011).
Associated with music groups like The D/A Method, Orangenoise and the Karachi-based music collective Forever South (FXS), one of Danny P’s most recent efforts include a collaborative music outfit called Anaasir with Rajan Shrestha from Nepal. Their efforts can be heard on an EP called Mandal that contains four songs and features folk musicians from Nepal as well. Available for streaming on Patari, it was produced at the Photo Kathmandu Residency 2016 by Panjwaneey and Shrestha with artwork and illustration by Sana Nasir.
Noahs Heark and Alien Panda Jury speaking at an interactive workshop during Lahore Music Meet 2017.
Given all these accomplishments, we’re not surprised that Danny P aka APJ has been selected for the 2017 edition of the Border Movement Residency in Berlin. BMR, states Border Movement, is “a series of curated experiences that are customised around the individual needs of musicians and aims to create meaningful and relevant creative exchanges between artists in South Asia and Germany”. Launched last year, the upcoming second edition will feature APJ from Pakistan alongside Sandunes (India) and FILM (India).
As part of the residency, “each artist will spend two months this year in Berlin under the watchful eye of local mentors who will guide them through the city’s music scene, supporting them both personally and professionally”.
Anaasir is a collaborative music project by Daniel A. Panjwaneey and Rajan Shrestha (from Nepal).
Speaking about getting selected, APJ, who is also a part of the Karachi Files collective, told Border Movement: “It is an absolute honor and I feel so overwhelmed and at a loss for words to express how grateful I am to be selected for a program like this. I feel like this opportunity has come at a time in my life where my musical universe and knowledge is ever-expanding and will allow me to express myself a lot more freely than before. I intend to take back a lot from this, not just for myself but also for the wonderful artists and cultures that I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by over the years in the melting-pot of talent that exists from Pakistan all the way up to the Himalayas.”
Earlier this month, Danny P also emerged at the recently concluded third edition of Lahore Music Meet where he took the stage alongside fellow musical cohort Noahs Heark (Ziyad Habib) for an interactive and (riveting) workshop called Simpler Sampling. During the session, the two music producers reflected on “sample-based composition, basic methods and techniques used in modern music production & songwriting, and outlined culture, context and methods by delving into sound acquisition, processing and manipulation”.
