Super Flu — the German duo of Felix Thielemann and Mathias Schwarz, longstanding fixtures on Crosstown Rebels and Moon Harbour — open a new chapter with Pancham, the launch release on Thick As Thieves’ freshly-minted in-house label. TAT001 is the first music to emerge from the Melbourne touring brand’s own imprint, and it’s a fitting statement of intent: three tracks of Eastern-tinged, organic melodic house, rounded out by a remix from fellow Melburnians The Journey.
The EP’s character is writ large in its title — pancham is the fifth note of the Indian classical scale — and the title track wears that heritage beautifully. Woodwind-toned leads coil around hand-played percussion and a rolling four-to-the-floor groove, the bass staying warm and unhurried beneath, and the whole seven and a half minutes unfolds like a slow exhale, every element allowed to breathe rather than forced into a peak.
Pancham launched Thick As Thieves' new in-house label.
Nicotine is a moodier proposition. A sultry vocal drifts through a haze of reverb, the drums tightening around it as the tension builds, and there’s a subtle menace in the low end that offsets the opener’s ease nicely. The Journey’s remix takes that same vocal and pushes it firmly towards the floor — bigger kicks, snappier percussion and a driving, peak-hour energy that sounds destined for the summer stages the brand has spent years curating.
With Pancham, Super Flu prove as adept at setting a label’s tone as they are at filling a dancefloor. It’s a record that rewards patience, its colours revealing themselves gradually, and it sets the bar admirably high for whatever follows on TAT’s new home. A confident, characterful start — and the journey has only just begun.
