Send "Pandr Eyez " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Hearing Pandr Eyez for the first time recently on Air France's FACT mix was slightly disarming. That's not to say that this is weird music. It's actually pretty accessible pop music, but something about their song "Little Bit" is hard to place. The pitch-perfect execution feels like something you should already know-- a producer retooling a forgotten acapella, maybe, or perhaps a radio cut from a new R&B singer. As it happens neither is exactly true: Pandr Eyez is the work of a London-based duo made up of producer Tom Lloyd and singer Ferren Gipson.The story is that they met while living in a shared university dormitory then started exchanging musical ideas. Something about that enthusiasm and shared love of certain styles carries over into Pandr Eyez, giving the project an infectious, off-the-cuff energy. That, combined with the absence of samples or acapellas, makes Eyes on You feel both homespun and playful in execution, though perhaps a couple of steps away from "the real thing." That lingering feeling makes this seem like more of an outside-looking-in take on R&B, and it's tempting to compare it to the kind of thing jj went in for on their mixtape Kills, but this isn't anywhere near as drugged or sad-eyed. "Little Bit" stands out from the rest of their material, with woozy synths and a shuffling beat pushing rhythms in all the right spots. Above that backdrop Gipson buries her verses in rap standards like "Didn't have too much when we started this game/ Now we're doing alright, check my diamonds and rings." But lines like those-- and others about brand new kicks, seeing her face on TV, and referencing 16 bars-- sound different coming from what is essentially a bedroom duo rather than guys like 8Ball and MJG. There's an element of dress-up to Gipson's lyrics, and a gooey soft center that isn't quite concealed by the fronting. (It's not a million miles away from the effect of Robyn on "Konichiwa Bitches".)...full text |
| Thebluewalrus |
| It only took me one listen to fall in love with the transatlantic duo, Pandr Eyez (facebook/twitter) – but now the fine folks at Cascine are putting out their debut EP in a couple of weeks. Little Bit and Bird Song are on the EP and are still as beautiful as when I first heard them. But they are joined with the more paired back and spacious Shinin’, and the slow and brooding Eyes On You. They’ve also softened and slowed Leave Me Here for the Falling Mix allowing you to truly lose yourself in the shimmering synth and soulful vocals....full text |
| Totallyfuzzy |
| The background: Cascine is one of our favourite labels. How could it not be? The New York-London imprint has released records by Chad Valley, Selebrities and the brilliant Jensen Sportag, and everything it does has stylishness and class, like a glossy version of 80s Factory. This is especially impressive because we don't actually own any of the label's physical releases, just downloads. No, our idea of Cascine has been acquired via a combination of website typography and design, and a production sheen that seems to spread across its releases. So we were always going to write about Pandr Eyez, the latest Cascine signing. We were further swayed when we read that the duo – comprising American Ferren Lloyd on vocals and Brit boy Tom King on keyboards – had "sonic ties to doo-wop and 70s soul as well as to modern-day electronic music". This made us think they were going to be essaying an updated, electro version of symphonic soul, although of course this was never going to happen because symphonic soul was a time-specific genre (1968-74) with a specific instrumental, production and arrangement practices, and was invariably sung by what sounded like castrati. Because Pandr Eyez have a female singer and only one instrument to speak of, they were never going to replicate or update the lushness and grandeur of, say, Thom Bell's work with the Delfonics. Rather, what PE do is slow, atmospheric techno-soul, and if they're revisiting or rehabilitating anything it's 90s trip-hop – yes, that revival continues apace. The title track of their debut EP, Eyes on You, is slow, with deep, dark bass, lots of space and that voice to the fore, and although it's impressive, it is, if anything, a little characterless and heavy on those tried and tested signifiers of soul – passion, thickness and richness. We could have done with something more pallid and thin to match the shimmery sonics. But in a way Pandr Eyez are working a successful formula – soul and synths, fire and ice – used by bands as far back as Yazoo. We can imagine Leave Me Here, another track on the EP, being covered by someone else: it's almost a better song than it is a performance, if that makes sense. It sounds like a demo for another artist, but we quite like it for that – it feels less overdetermined, looser, than Eyes on You. We read someone else say the track sounds like "a demo-stage the-Dream", and that could be a good way for Pandr Eyez to go: offering a budget bedsit/laptop take on that US avant-R&B sound. Little Bit, the EP's opening track, is promising, almost but not quite approaching the levels of dreamy delirium and intoxicating intensity achieved by the Weeknd. Bird Song has plenty of space and dubby bass but it's not dubstep – dubsoul, more like. The sounds are nice, the melody less than great. They need to rein in the vocals, experiment more. Then again, they're in an invidious position: how to offer an arthouse version of US R&B, which is sonically already pretty far out. Unfortunately, it's a quandary for which we have no solution....full text |
Pandr Eyez lyrics
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