Snow Panda’s Ombak Mixes

Snow Panda has struck again, and this time it’s with material from Ombak’s Framing the Void. The man behind the project is Gabe Churray, ILAD keyboardist and mixing wizard. Using Ombak’s music, he has created six remixes that will all be released here one day at a time.

October 21, 2009; 6:00 AM • by Dean Christesen

Snow Panda has struck again, and this time it’s with material from Ombak‘s Framing the Void. The man behind the project is Gabe Churray, ilad keyboardist and mixing wizard. Using Ombak’s music recorded both in the studio and in performance, he has created six new mixes that will all be available for listening here in the next week.

Each week day between today and Ombak’s performance with Churray at Cous Cous next Wednesday, we’ll be releasing one track, accompanied by Snow Panda’s descriptions, Ombak trombonist and leader Bryan Hooten’s thoughts, and my analyses.

Hooten says about the project’s origin:

I had long been a fan of Snow Panda (Gabe Churray) and his keyboard and electronic wizardry as part of ilad, but the discovery of his remixes of drummer Brian Jones’s music made me curious about what he could conjure up using the Ombak album, Framing the Void. The already jump-cutting, angular, and mathematical sounds on the record seemed ripe for further manipulation. I also found out through the grape vine, before he even mentioned it, that he was a trombone player himself, so I knew he’d have a great ear for the project.

In May, I handed Gabe our studio tracks and some live recordings from our CD release party at Cous Cous, which he combined with his own field recordings of the band. After months of work, Snow Panda’s brilliant alchemy has yielded tracks that sound at once strangely exotic and intimately human. One can hear recognizable snippets of tunes as well as sounds fractured, compressed, stretched or otherwise completely transmogrified.

Ombak – Snow Panda Mixes track list
1. Hooten
2. Shuffle
3. Elegy for Aeroplanes
4. Oki
5. Theologue
6. Bushido

All tracks will be available for download on Ombak’s blog and Snow Panda’s website after 10/28.