''Pansoul'' is the only album by
French house
French house, also known as French touch, filter house and tekfunk, is a style of house music originally produced by French musicians in the 1990s. It is a form of Euro disco and a popular strand of the late 1990s and 2000s European dance m ...
duo
Motorbass Motorbass was a French house duo originating from Paris and consisting of Philippe Zdar (later of Cassius) and Étienne de Crécy. According to AllMusic, their "romping '70s updates released on the Cassius and Source labels have been instrumental i ...
, released in July 1996 under the record label Motorbass. It was reissued in 2003 and then again on October 21, 2021 by the record label
Ed Banger
Ed Banger Records (sometimes referred to as Ed Rec) is a French electronic music record label founded by Pedro Winter in 2003 as a division of Headbangers Entertainment. It focuses on house music, particularly French house, as well as alterna ...
to mark the 25th anniversary of the album's release. It is credited as being one of the first and most important albums in the French house genre.
Critical reception
In its review of the 2003 reissue,
''Uncut'' magazine called it "the starting point for the French dance movement, and therefore one of that decade's most important records. Yet the spaces its 10 tracks inhabit are far darker than anything
Daft Punk
Daft Punk were a French electronic music duo formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. Widely regarded as one of the most influential acts in dance music history, they achieved popularity in the late 1990s as p ...
or
Air
The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...
have achieved."
Keith Farley of
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
called it a "solid LP of retro-disco".
Legacy
''Pansoul'' placed at number 59 in
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
's list of "100 Lost Albums You Need to Know". ''Pansoul'' was placed at number 10 in
''Spin'' magazine's list of the twenty best albums released by record label
Astralwerks
Astralwerks is an American record label primarily focused on electronic music owned by Universal Music Group. Its material is distributed via Capitol Music Group in the United States. The label was founded in 1993 and, in its early years, featur ...
, in which it was called "the most important album in French house".
Track listing
Different CD: DIF 001
Motorbass LP: MB 003
References
{{Authority control
1996 albums
Motorbass albums