Panchiko pulled the plug so early in its career that it never officially released its debut album.
The title track, the first single from Failed at Math(s), arrived in early March, and the band followed it with “Until I Know” later that month. A third single, “Portraits,” came out just this month.
The story of the album’s release has been well-documented, but it’s so unique that it merits retelling.
Almost seven years ago, a user on 4chan’s /mu/ board posted a photo of a demo CD discovered in an Oxfam charity store in Nottingham, UK. Titled D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L, it purportedly came out in 2000. The listener uploaded the ripped audio to file-sharing sites and then later put it up on YouTube, where it began circulating around web forums. A cult of fans worked to solve the origin story and found singer Davies on Facebook and messaged him.
“I don’t do Facebook much, but someone messaged me and asked if I was the lead singer,” says Owain Davies during a conference call with bassist Shaun Ferreday and keyboardist Andy Wright by his side as they sat in the back of their tour van at a San Francisco date. Panchiko performs on Saturday, June 3, at the Beachland Ballroom. “I thought that was odd because I know for a fact that that music was never put on the Internet. I didn’t know how someone knew about it and said [Panchiko] was a name I hadn’t heard in a long time. They said that the CD was really degraded and that they were part of a group trying to find a clean version of the demo. I said, ‘Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not.’”
Davies then contacted Wright, who knew nothing about the 100,000 YouTube views the band’s music had received.
And just like that, the band was suddenly a going concern.
“When we chatted about whether we should ‘get the band back together’ in the words of the Blues Brothers, we thought, ‘What is the worst that can happen?’” says Ferreday. “I suppose we could humiliate ourselves in front of the whole world, but that’s accomplished on a daily basis in our lives, so it seemed like the right thing to do.”
The group’s first live show after reuniting took place in 2021.
“It was utterly terrifying,” says Ferreday when asked about the gig. “To bring something out of retirement after 20 years was quite a scary thing to do. It’s slightly better for the other guys because they actually played an instrument over the last 20 years, and I hadn’t. That was worrying for everybody involved. But no, it was awesome. It was an incredible thing. When we showed up at the venue, and there were queues of people around the block, that was an amazing feeling. That was great.”
Initially, the band took inspiration from the likes of its contemporaries — bands such as Super Furry Animals, DJ Shadow and Kid Loco (“we stuck them all together pretty badly,” jokes Wright) when it formed in Nottingham, England in the mid-’90s.
“We were all in separate bands — me and Andy [Wright] were in band together, and Owain [Davis] was in a separate band,” says Ferreday. “We poached Owain [Davies] because the singer we had at the time wasn’t amazing. The band just amalgamated. We were all about 15 years old.”
Since band members were so young, they weren’t exactly clued into what was happening in Nottingham at the time.
“We lived about 15 miles out, and we were all in high school,” says Davies. “We played a lot of covers and played gyms and sports centers and maybe a small bar or pub. We eventually started to develop a set that was our own music.”
At that point, the group started recording demos. The guys saved up all their gig money to do a studio recording, but they didn’t like the end result, so they began recording at home. They cut two EPs at their home studio, which they sent to A&R reps at various labels.
“Back then, you didn’t have the internet to help you spread your music,” says Davies. “The record company might like it and sign you and give you a massive loan you would have to pay back. We got one response from a small label in London called Fierce Panda. They thought it was cool and wanted us to let them know if we had a gig in London. We weren’t playing gigs in London at that time. We went back to doing things we liked, like going to university and having mundane jobs.”
For Failed at Math(s), the band cut some new songs and re-recorded old ones. And yet, the album is surprisingly cohesive. With its upper-register vocals and swirls of synths, the title track has a Gorillaz feel to it and “Until I Know” channels classic Brit-pop acts like Pulp and Blur.
“We’re still working jobs, so it has been hard to write more songs,” admits Davies. “Andy [Wright] might write some and Shaun [Ferreday] might do some stuff, and we’re looking forward to writing more songs. We still have the ability to do it, and some of the new songs were written within a week for better or worse, but we like them. ‘Failed at Math(s)’ was a quick thing I did on my laptop. Before I got into the details, I sent it to Andy [Wright] quickly, and he said it sounded good, but it would be stronger if I changed the pitch and tempo. I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ It was more collaborative [than in the past]. I hope we can continue that process.”
Given the layers of synths and samples on the tunes, it would be difficult for the band to replicate the album’s songs in a live setting. As a result, the group has refashioned the material so that the songs take on a new life for the stage.
“With some of the music we make, we would need a backing track, but we have gone the route with no backing tracks,” says Davies. “We are relying on dynamics. [The live show] is a bit different live and has a bit more energy. We played last night in Portland, OR, and the audience was great. They were even moshing. It was mad!”
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This article appears in May 3-17, 2023.