Out now via Armada Music and Hungry Music.
Photo credit: Joachim Pastor – Facebook
Joachim Pastor has released his new album ‘PHANTOMGRID’, a 10-track project blending melodic electronica with cinematic textures and drum and bass flourishes. Out now via Armada Music and Hungry Music, the record marks a return to Pastor’s introspective roots while pushing into new technological territory.
Composed largely in solitude and guided by instinct, ‘PHANTOMGRID’ draws on the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU) to explore contrasts between intuition and precision, emotion and machine. Pastor enhanced the album using AI, but kept the focus on raw, expressive performance—developing custom MIDI controllers and Ableton plugins for his evolving live show.
“I’ve never quite fit within their underground scene, nor the commercial wave of melodic techno,” he says. “With ‘PHANTOMGRID’, I’ve carved out a distinctive body of work in response to my commitment to stripping music back to its core.”
Tracks like ‘Synthetic Recall’ and ‘Walk With Me’ anchor the narrative arc, while lead single ‘Happy Now?’ highlights the voice of 88Birds (Diana Miro), preserved in its most natural form.
The project’s visuals were created using Pastor’s personal Stable Diffusion AI system, with a full behind-the-scenes documentary also on the way.
Listen to ‘PHANTOMGRID’ below and get your copy here.
