This was a pinnacle period for Paneye, with live shows and NWE releasing my 2010 album Lost in a Dark Aquarium.
Stuart Buchanan, the owner of NWE, wrote the below linear notes:
Stuart Buchanan, the owner of NWE, wrote the below linear notes:
It was initially a good experience, but part of the requirement for having my album released was that NWE butcher my original artwork (attached link to butchered art).
This change happened without my artistic consent, and I was put under loads of pressure to accept it retroactively. I was very young and I thought "well, maybe my art isn't marketable for some reason."
I really regret not protesting it more.
I was gutted about how shit the altered album cover looked and it really hurt my confidence and desire to engage or continue at all with NWE, even though the good times with NWE were great.
Embarrassingly, I had friends asking me why my album artwork was changed. I couldn't really tell them why, but privately I just thought my original art must have looked crap to my label, so they replaced it.
Loads of people loved the album, but nobody liked the new album art. Friends were visibly confused and concerned. It literally looks like a piece of Google AI crap.
The remedy was Stu's linear notes write up for the album, for me at the time, I found quite complementary. I just couldn't forgive my album artwork being binned. It soured all the positive feelings that I had towards the label. Unfortunately, my feelings around this led me to not submit any further music or play live for NWE again, aside brief compilation appearances.
It was 4 years until I released another public Paneye album, independently, as I spiraled into self-doubt.
This hit to my artistic confidence didn't see Paneye release any more music publicly until 2014, even though vast numbers of songs were created privately. At the time, in my distorted view, nothing was good enough. I doubted my visions, and it stemmed from my NWE album being violated and turned into something I didn't recognise. I hated how the NWE album cover looked. It was a giant ugly cancer mole on the face of Paneye.
When it came to Paneye - the album art, for me, was crucial to what I was trying to communicate through my music. Without the album art, the songs were faceless orphans. Or worse, made to wear ugly uniforms and attend an abusive boarding school.
Years later, in 2016, Stu and I reconnected randomly. I sent him my latest album, and he released 2016's Desertism with unaltered album art on his boutique and now-defunct Providence Label.
It initially looked like we were back! ...but our relationship never really recovered, and Stu appeared to rapidly lose interest in my work. He seemed more diva-like and self-important than I remembered him in 2010. It alienated me.
However, I do appreciate the Providence release, even though Stu hasn't kept it in his catalogue. I guess he's not a fan. He also terminated the label, so perhaps it's that. Who knows? It's all in the past now. and this is just for the memoir.
This is what Stu wrote about Desertism in 2016:
Paneye is Sydney-born and Dubai-based artist Will Treffry. Not that you would know it. Paneye has been making music on the outside for several years, self-releasing five lengthy albums of material direct from his own web site – a micro world inhabited by people that Paneye calls ‘The Butter People’. He is beloved by small, personal music blogs – writers who, like Paneye, exist in the shadows, on the fringe, and find solace and connection in his works.
Unbeknown to the world at large, Paneye has also racked up over 150,000 streams and downloads on the Free Music Archive; predominantly for his 27-track 2010 opus ‘Lost In A Dark Aquarium’ – co-released by New Weird Australia and Brooklyn’s Orchid Tapes, home to Balam Acab and Alex G. He has also released a further three albums in collaboration with Jasper Rice under the banner of Bristles On The Carapace.
Provenance nudges Paneye gently in the light with the release of his sixth full length, ‘Desertism’. Recorded entirely in Dubai, the album represents an evolution of his work from lo-fi ambient constructions to a more structured song-based psych-folk approach, whilst retaining his customary dream-like shroud – bringing his own voice to the fore and recruiting secondary vocals from a conspirator known only as Khat.
‘Desertism’ may well be a tentative step out of the shadows, and it often plays like a reconnaissance mission to another world – either way, it’s a bewitching, original work that represents the legion of outsider artists who resolutely follow a singular path, and end up at a beautiful place quite unlike any other.
This change happened without my artistic consent, and I was put under loads of pressure to accept it retroactively. I was very young and I thought "well, maybe my art isn't marketable for some reason."
I really regret not protesting it more.
I was gutted about how shit the altered album cover looked and it really hurt my confidence and desire to engage or continue at all with NWE, even though the good times with NWE were great.
Embarrassingly, I had friends asking me why my album artwork was changed. I couldn't really tell them why, but privately I just thought my original art must have looked crap to my label, so they replaced it.
Loads of people loved the album, but nobody liked the new album art. Friends were visibly confused and concerned. It literally looks like a piece of Google AI crap.
The remedy was Stu's linear notes write up for the album, for me at the time, I found quite complementary. I just couldn't forgive my album artwork being binned. It soured all the positive feelings that I had towards the label. Unfortunately, my feelings around this led me to not submit any further music or play live for NWE again, aside brief compilation appearances.
It was 4 years until I released another public Paneye album, independently, as I spiraled into self-doubt.
This hit to my artistic confidence didn't see Paneye release any more music publicly until 2014, even though vast numbers of songs were created privately. At the time, in my distorted view, nothing was good enough. I doubted my visions, and it stemmed from my NWE album being violated and turned into something I didn't recognise. I hated how the NWE album cover looked. It was a giant ugly cancer mole on the face of Paneye.
When it came to Paneye - the album art, for me, was crucial to what I was trying to communicate through my music. Without the album art, the songs were faceless orphans. Or worse, made to wear ugly uniforms and attend an abusive boarding school.
Years later, in 2016, Stu and I reconnected randomly. I sent him my latest album, and he released 2016's Desertism with unaltered album art on his boutique and now-defunct Providence Label.
It initially looked like we were back! ...but our relationship never really recovered, and Stu appeared to rapidly lose interest in my work. He seemed more diva-like and self-important than I remembered him in 2010. It alienated me.
However, I do appreciate the Providence release, even though Stu hasn't kept it in his catalogue. I guess he's not a fan. He also terminated the label, so perhaps it's that. Who knows? It's all in the past now. and this is just for the memoir.
This is what Stu wrote about Desertism in 2016:
Paneye is Sydney-born and Dubai-based artist Will Treffry. Not that you would know it. Paneye has been making music on the outside for several years, self-releasing five lengthy albums of material direct from his own web site – a micro world inhabited by people that Paneye calls ‘The Butter People’. He is beloved by small, personal music blogs – writers who, like Paneye, exist in the shadows, on the fringe, and find solace and connection in his works.
Unbeknown to the world at large, Paneye has also racked up over 150,000 streams and downloads on the Free Music Archive; predominantly for his 27-track 2010 opus ‘Lost In A Dark Aquarium’ – co-released by New Weird Australia and Brooklyn’s Orchid Tapes, home to Balam Acab and Alex G. He has also released a further three albums in collaboration with Jasper Rice under the banner of Bristles On The Carapace.
Provenance nudges Paneye gently in the light with the release of his sixth full length, ‘Desertism’. Recorded entirely in Dubai, the album represents an evolution of his work from lo-fi ambient constructions to a more structured song-based psych-folk approach, whilst retaining his customary dream-like shroud – bringing his own voice to the fore and recruiting secondary vocals from a conspirator known only as Khat.
‘Desertism’ may well be a tentative step out of the shadows, and it often plays like a reconnaissance mission to another world – either way, it’s a bewitching, original work that represents the legion of outsider artists who resolutely follow a singular path, and end up at a beautiful place quite unlike any other.
Link to my butchered album art:
Paneye ‘Lost In A Dark Aquarium’ | NWAED003 - New Weird Australia
Link to Desertism's Providence archive:
Paneye – Desertism (Provenance) – STUART BUCHANAN
