Panache means a flamboyant, confident style or elegance, but it can also refer to an ornamental plume of feathers.
Who was Panache? It was the alter ego of Kristofer Lecander from the south of Sweden (not sure which town or city, anybody knows?) who released a couple of records in the mid-2000s.
I must say I was not very familiar with his music back then, I remember hearing a song here and there, but didn’t pay attention. I’m just rediscovering the music and listened to the track “The Streets Are Calling Your Name” and thought it was different and nice. So yeah, time to dig and find out more information.
Panache released an album on the Japanese label Rallye Label (RYECD01) in 2005. It was called “Black Letters” and included 11 tracks: “A Mind Forever Voyaging”, “Breeze Whispers”, “Disco in the Sky (I Won’t Go Back)”, “Remington Blues”, “When There’s No Tomorrow”, “Breeze Whistles”, “Counterfeit Astonishment”, “The Ivory Field of Flair”, “Jodorowsky Hijinx”, “The Flourishes of the Quadrille” and “Bombyx Mori”. All songs are credited to Kristofer. Dexter Cliff is credited for additional guitar, bass, brass, scratch and electronics. Both of them are credited as producers. Anna Cooper does guest vocals on “When There’s No Tomorrow” and Odd Lecander played guitars on “Counterfeit Astonishment”. Tracks were recorded at home in Held Bay and at Dexter Cliff’s studio in Ore Island between May 2004 and February 2005.
Four years after the release of the first album, in 2009, Panache releases a 10 song album called “Fractions”. This was released just digitally, as Mp3s. It had 10 songs “This Past Future”, “Every Floor is a Dance Floor”, “The Streets Are Calling Your Name”, “Never Return”, “Heartbreaker” with guest vocals by Hanna Brandén from Name The Pet, “Someday, Someday”, “Swirl”, “Silly Love Song”, “Too Much Time” and “Fractions”. The album was available on the band’s website which doesn’t exist anymore.
I wonder how the Japanese label Rallye found about Panache. Maybe online, songs were available to download around 2004? Or maybe like many Swedish bands of the time released some CDRs?
Aside from the albums we know that the song “Conditional” was part of the 2005 compilation CD “Rallye Cloack 2 “The Swim Sweet Swedish” Compilation” (RYECD012) and the 2008 cassette comp “Vänskap 002” had the track “Solitude in Springtime”.
And that’s really it. Couldn’t find any more info about Panache! Anyone remembers the band? What about Kristofer? Was he involved in other projects?
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