Pandhora’s founding duo Amine and Rémi transformed from corporate engineers into innovative electronic music artists, crafting a remarkable musical odyssey.
Photo credit: Pandhora – Official
After leaving their corporate careers in 2015, this France-based project has evolved into a forward-thinking collective, leading to their debut album ‘Evasion’ – crafted over three years between Istanbul, Tunis, and France.
From recording at the Chateau de Commarque to partnering with sustainable fashion brands like Anissa Aida, Pandhora takes a comprehensive approach to their art. Their music emerges naturally through collaborative sessions, combining synthesizers, guitars, and vocals.
Influenced by their French, Tunisian, and Turkish roots, Pandhora creates music that blends live instrumentation with electronic elements. Their debut album ‘Evasion’ focuses on themes of self-acceptance and environmental harmony, while their upcoming remix collection includes work with artists like Djuma Soundsystem and Kamilo Sanclemente. Throughout their journey, they maintain their focus on collaboration and sustainability.
EG had the opportunity to sit down with electronic music duo Pandhora for an in-depth conversation about their debut album, their creative process, and their exciting upcoming projects.
EG: Hi, Pandhora! Welcome to EG. It’s a pleasure to have you here with us. How have you been? Where are you right now?
Pandhora: Hello EG community. Thanks for having us with you today. It’s been a long time since we spoke! At the end of 2024, we spent a lot of time in Tunisia, we took the chance to do a photoshoot for our first album ‘Evasion’. On this special occasion, we partnered with local fashion brands from the country. It is very important for us to prioritize slow fashion and upcycling whenever possible. For example, we partnered with Anissa Aida whose style blends Japanese and Tunisian clothes while adopting a slow fashion mindset. We really love her minimalistic and futuristic concept and are very happy with the results.
EG: First of all, congratulations on the release of your latest live show video at the Sparklers! You must be stoked to have this one out. What has the initial reception been like so far? Was it a highlight of your summer tour?
Pandhora: Thank you! We are definitely delighted to release a full concert online. The previous one traces back to 2022 at Untold Festival. Our concert at Sparklers wasn’t planned to be recorded but we got a nice surprise after finishing our set. It had been recorded by 4 different cameras and luckily, we also had an audio recording. The funny thing is it was recorded in mono, so we had to do a lot of post-production! It was a challenge but we are happy about how it sounds. And also about how the video looks, it clearly reflects the vibes from that night. Definitely a highlight of our year. The production was fantastic and the location quite amazing. The festival took place near the 12th century castle Chateau de Commarque in Dordogne, France.
EG: So, you just released your first full-length album. What can your fans expect to find on ‘Evasion’?
Pandhora: After 9 years of project, we’re so stoked to have an album out! Up until now, we were releasing mostly singles, EPs, and remixes. However, we felt like having a coherent album was the next step for us. ‘Evasion’ summarizes three years of our lives, from 2020 to 2023. It’s a pretty cool feeling to crystallize these moments in an album. The theme of ‘Evasion’ is self-acceptance, harmony with nature, and freedom. It features 10 tracks and was made between Istanbul, Tunis, France and the countries we toured in 2022 & 2023. We’ve learned so much in the process and hope your community enjoys listening to the full project!
EG: What was the creative process for this one like? Do you guys have set roles in the studio by now? Can you walk us through your studio process?
Pandhora: We tend to start songs together in the studio either in France or Tunisia. In our world, there’s no formula to making music. We like to explore different sound palettes with our music so usually projects start from a blank page.
Most times we will lay down a simple beat and start jamming with synthesizers, guitars and vocals. If something sticks, we spend time developing the idea and gauge whether it is strong enough to create a full track from. It can be a vocal phrase, a spoken word, a guitar riff, a chord progression, a sample we really like, or many things in-between. If we decide to go along with the idea, we will spend a long time creating a 16-bar loop. That’s the step where we work on melodies, sound design, rhythmic placements, harmony, etc. Once this is done, the song will naturally flow from this loop.
Over the next sessions, we will focus on arrangement, automations and all sorts of production details. We usually send a pre-mixed version to Antoine Cayot, the mixing engineer we worked with on ‘Evasion’.
Once the mixdown is approved, the track is sent to a mastering studio that will make sure everything is under control and ready for commercial use whether it is for streaming purposes or being played by DJs in a gig.
“In our world, there’s no formula to making music. We like to explore different sound palettes with our music so usually projects start from a blank page”
EG: ‘Evasion’ features the collaboration of Stephane Salerno and Cahelo. What was the experience of working with them?
Pandhora: It has been really smooth working with both of them. They are very dear friends to us. ‘Papaya’ was created in Stephane Salerno’s studio near Marseille in France. He’s an amazing multi-instrumentalist who can pretty much play everything: from African and Latin percussions to various string instruments and keys. Stephane initiated the jam session with a catchy riff on his saz. This constitutes the backbone of ‘Papaya’, from which we built drums, harmony and vocals. The session lasted a couple of hours and was completed later on over the internet. It just flowed. The song is very light and pictures an imaginary divinity praised by humans: the Papaya Maya – master of Papayas.
We met Cahelo in a music shop in Montpellier while shopping for a microphone in 2019. He was working there at the time and while he was advising us on a microphone choice, we quickly realized he was producing music within the same niche as we did. We exchanged numbers and met casually a few other times. In 2021, we produced the track ‘Dust’ together, which got released on our label at the time – Art Vibes. The track made a good impression amongst fans and we played it in so many of our live sets. Then came 2023, and we organized another session at Cahelo’s studio – kickstarting what would become ‘Unfold Your Heart’ – a song about using art as therapy, and as a means to get through existence. We’re so happy about how it turned out! It’s actually been the opener of our live set for a year or so. We just replaced it with the upcoming remix of Kamilo Sanclemente who has such a driving beat!
Both of these guys are amazing humans and friends, we’re so looking forward to working with them again in the near future. Do check out their music, it’s worth listening to!
EG: Do you guys work with shamanic chants/mantras in your daily life? What’s the significance of the one found on ‘Papaya’?
Pandhora: We do not work with shamanic chants on a daily basis, however we’re very open to experimenting in that direction whenever we have an opportunity. We’ve actually done sessions with a shaman in Berlin which turned out to be very mystic experiences. There are things that can’t be rationalized, and being in touch with the mystic is one of them.
‘Papaya’ is actually a really fun and light song and doesn’t have a profound significance besides praising the lord of the Papayas!
“We hardly think AI could replace a whole artistic project… however, its use in music production will keep on growing”
EG: Now, on to another subject… Regarding AI, which seems to be such a hot topic these days… What’s your stance on this? Do you see it driving the scene forward? Has any form of AI been used in ‘Papaya’ or any recent productions?
Pandhora: AI is going big for sure! We tend to see it as a strong revolution, but we still think it’s early. Probably like the internet in the late 90s. We think we’re far from mass adoption, however we could be surprised! The impact on music creation is significant, with crazy tools being available to everyone. To us, the magic lies in how you utilize these tools. We hardly think AI could replace a whole artistic project… however, its use in music production will keep on growing. From chord progressions, to sound design, to full melodic ideas and computer-made vocals. This is a definite playground for tech companies that will give birth to interesting questions about copyright, purpose, and the meaning of music.
We currently do not use AI to create anything. We do have smart tools that allow us to quickly come up with samples matching, harmonic ideas, and lyrics brainstorming! This has proved to be useful, even though we don’t consider ourselves to be AI adopters just yet! We are still putting so many hours into crafting each of our songs – probably between 50 to 80 hours per unit.
EG: Thank you so much for your time, Pandhora! We wish you all the best for the future. Take care!
Pandhora: Many thanks for having us! It’s always a pleasure to talk to Electronic Groove and your community.
Pandhora’s ‘Evasion’ is now available. Stream and download here.
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