The prefix “post” carries a lot of weight when attached to a musical subgenre, suddenly implying a before, an after, and some major evolution or deconstruction in between. The tender synth pieces drifting through Pandit Pam Pam’s Quinto Relatório Anual are tagged as “post-club,” but for São Paulo producer Eduardo Ramos the term is refreshingly literal. This brief, beguiling album feels designed for late-night, pre-dawn hours, channeling an intimate atmosphere through tracks as delicate and mysterious as flowers blooming in moonlight.
Quinto Relatório Anual soothes the ear the moment Ramos’s synths float into view on the gentle opener “Freedamn,” but its palette never feels sanded-down. Tracks like “Olhos I” and “Bondade” conjure thick ambience, while the lively “Soroko 2” cuts through with tumbling percussion and synths recalling the acid-fried energy of James Holden’s The Inheritors. “Indonesia Print” and the twinkling standout “Radio” strike a sweet spot for Quinto Relatório Anual, but it’s the sprawling outlier “(A) Mar” that makes good on the Throbbing Gristle reference in the album title (which translates to “Fifth Annual Report,” a nod to TG’s first and second albums. The seven-minute track casts an ominous fog, echoing the industrial pioneers’s own unsettling subversions of easy-listening like “Beachy Head” and “Exotica,” generating an eerie chill right at the album’s center. Taken as a whole, Quinto Relatório Anual is an immensely pleasurable listen with just enough wrinkles; an album to soothe the mind and provoke the imagination in equal measure.
