潘Pan collaborated with Grimes on a futuristic animated video for 'Darkseid'
This is third time the Taiwanese artist has hooked up with Grimes
Coming off her recent album ‘Miss Anthropocene’ is a cyberpunk-themed animated music video for Grimes’ latest single release ‘Darksied’. She teamed up with Taiwanese rapper 潘Pan, also known as Aristophanes, in what would be their third collaboration since their first joint venture in 2015.
Futuristic, humanistic and politically-inclined in its message and concept, the video depicts a fem-bot who according to Pitchfork, represents the "anthropomorphic goddess of climate change", which is also the encompassing theme of the album in which "each song will be a different embodiment of human extinction".
‘Darkseid’ is styled with vocoded-style rap lines flaring over spacey synths, and driven by a reverb-heavy bassline that booms in tandem with a high-impact kick drum. The overall feel of the track is aggressive yet somewhat mysterious, veering on the darkside while still colourful.
The two artists bridge an east-meets-west connection that is substantially deeper than just a collaboration based on statistics. Grimes reached out to 潘Pan by discovering her on SoundCloud, and the two quickly connected over each other's industrial-style motif in music, as well as a greater vision on the theme of humanity and the future.
潘Pan's real name is Pan Wei Ju, and has blown up across the Asian music diaspora for being a liberally outspoken Mandarin rapper, and grew her career from her first stage name Aristophanes, an Ancient Greek comic that used rhythmic poetry in his narrative. Pan’s narrative in music is influenced heavily from literature, particularly over topics like feminism, sex, and relationships, while her tone and style of music is futuristic and forward-thinking.
Both artists make a unique pairing, and the video perfectly melds their two visions into one hazy space in the future. Check out the music video for 'Darkseid' below.
