Hungarian drummer and electronicist Balázs Pándi is a prolific international recording artist and improviser. He has been a name collaborator or sideman on more than 50 releases. He may be best known for his extensive collaborations with Japanese noise artist Merzbow (Masami Akita), American pianist Jamie Saft, and Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson. Pándi has collaborated with dozens of electronic, industrial, avant-jazz, and rock musicians including Bill Laswell and Thurston Moore. His playing style is as physical as it is diverse: It ranges from free jazz and angular fusion to thrash, progressive, and death metal, with many stops in between. He also plays his own unique brand of industrial EDM. In his playing and improvising, one can hear trace influences of drummers ranging from Rashied Ali and Han Bennink to Zach Hill, Gavin Harrison, and Tomas Haake. Pándi made his recorded debut in 2007 with Venetian Snares and co-founded Rope Cosmetology, who released five albums between 2009 and 2012 including Diffusion de la Rue de la Double Identité and Disunion Strips. He is one of the drummers in the Blood of Heroes, a collaborative, experimental electronic project with Justin Broadrick, Bill Laswell, Submerged, Enduser, Dr. Israel, and KJ Sawka. Their self-titled debut appeared from Ohm Resistance in 2010 (followed by War two years later). Pándi joined guitarist Eraldo Bernocchi's doom rock outfit Obake for a self-titled offering on the RareNoise label in 2011. The following year, the collective Metallic Taste of Blood, comprised of the drummer and Bernocchi with ex-Porcupine Tree bassist Colin Edwin and pianist/keyboardist Jamie Saft, issued their self-titled debut on RareNoise. He followed it with the album One, a trio date from Ivo Perelman and Joe Morris. Pándi, Saft, Morris, and bassist Trevor Dunn issued Black Aces as metal improv group Slobber Pup in 2013. They recorded Cuts with Merzbow and Mats Gustafsson later that year. 2014 saw Pándi, Saft, and Morris collaborate as Red Hill with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. In 2015, a second Slobber Pup date, titled Pole Axe, was released, as was Cuts of Guilt, Cuts Deeper by Pándi, Merzbow, Gustafsson, and guitarist Thurston Moore. The drummer, Saft, and Morris backed trombonist Roswell Rudd on Strength & Power, released in the early spring of 2016, and that summer saw the release of An Untroublesome Defencelessness with Pándi and guitarist Keiji Haino. Even with all the recorded activity, Pándi toured the globe almost constantly with a dazzling array of ensembles. He kept up the recording pace, though. He was part of a pair of duo projects: with K.K. Null on Demon Core and the Köhnen Pándi Duo (with electronicist Jason Köhnen, aka Bong-Ra). In 2018, the latter pair worked together again under Bong-Ra's imprimatur on the digital release Antediluvian. Pándi and Norwegian electro-acoustic multi-instrumentalist Jon Wesseltoft issued Infinite Vice later that year. In addition, RareNoise released Cuts Up Cuts Out by the quartet with Merzbow, Moore, and Gustafsson. The drummer's recorded catalog grew considerably in 2019. In addition to touring extensively with a variety of musicians, he formed the trio Cement Shoes alongside Italian bassist Gonçalo Almeida and keyboardist Giovanni Di Domenico. Their debut offering, Opus Caementicium, was released by Gaffer Records in January. The critically acclaimed Ceremonial Healing, cut in 2017, was a Record Store Day triple-length release from RareNoise in April. It featured the drummer in the company of saxophonists Marshall Allen and Danny Ray Thompson (both of the Sun Ra Arkestra), Saft, and Dunn. It also included the final recorded appearances of Rudd as a guest. The same month, Pándi and Wesseltoft issued the album Terreng on Moving Furniture Records. In May, Live at Alternativa by Shibuya Motors was released, featuring Pándi and drummer Didi Kern with electronicist Slávo Krekovič and saxist/vocalist Miroslav Tóth. A day later, Trost issued a self-titled offering from the quartet of Lee Ranaldo, Jim Jarmusch, Marc Urselli, and Pándi. In September, Merzbow, Haino, and Pándi released Become the Discovered, Not the Discoverer on RareNoise. Its group M.O. for the project was, "no limitations, no concepts...just listening and playing." Later that year, he teamed with Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Jon Wesseltoft for the vinyl offering Terreng on Moving Furniture. For Record Store Day, RareNoise issued the triple-length Ceremonial Healing, a multigenerational free jazz group recording. It included Pándi in the company of trombonist Roswell Rudd (in one of his final sessions), Marshall Allen, Danny Ray Thompson, Jamie Saft, and Trevor Dunn. In the fall of 2020, RareNoise released Cuts Open. Recorded during the summer of 2018, the trio session between the drummer, Gustafsson, and Merzbow offered 87 minutes of visceral music that relied as much on dark atmospherics and summoning dread as it did on the pyrotechnics of the instrumentalists. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi