2LP, Gatefold cover. With Papotier, the Pancrace collective brings their singular trilogy to a close - following their acclaimed self-titled debut (2017) and The Fluid Hammer (2019). Once again on Penultimate Press and Cairos Edition, this latest release dives even deeper into the ensemble’s wild hybrid of extended technique, free improvisation, and electroacoustic alchemy. The recording took place in a Protestant church in Bouxwiller, Alsace, where the group had access to a historic 18th-century Silbermann pipe organ - famous for its “voix humaine” register. Central to the project is a carved grotesque mask embedded in the organ’s woodwork: the papotier, a symbolic figure that inspired a phenomenological exploration of voice, breath, and language.

Across four sprawling sides of vinyl, Papotier transforms the organ into a human-like apparatus - part windpipe, part mythological mouthpiece - through a convergence of traditional and handmade instruments: uilleann pipes, baroque violin, a custom MIDI instrument called the “Organous,” feedback circuits, mechanical devices, and sonic toys. The result is nothing short of extraordinary. Echoes of Aine O’Dwyer, Olivier Messiaen, early Musique Concrète, and proto-Dadaist performance rituals appear and vanish, as Papotier blurs the line between sacred drone, absurd theater, and unfiltered sonic phenomena. It is a world where exhalation becomes communication, and acoustic space turns into language. A haunting, surreal, and deeply physical listening experience, Papotier is not only a culmination but a radical reinvention - proof that Pancrace continues to thrive as a boundary-pushing collective - one of the most daring and imaginative ensembles in today’s experimental music landscape.