DEATHMETAL (found Panchiko album; 2000)

D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L album cover

Status: Found

Date found: 16 Feb 2020

D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L is an album created by British indie rock band, Panchiko. The band received public attention when a 4chan user found their 2000 demo album D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L in a charity shop. The disc was mostly notable from the disc rot, lending a big cult following and extensive search to find the band and a clean copy of the album.

Background

Panchiko was formed in 1997-1998 with the members almost nearing the end of Secondary school.^[1]^[2] The band consisted of childhood friends, Owain Davies, Andy Wright, Shaun Ferreday, and John. The band's name is derived from a misspelling of the word "Pachinko" and that the otaku culture had an influence on the band.^[3] The music was influenced by bands, Radiohead, Nirvana, The Beatles, Super Furry Animals, and more. The band performed live covers in pubs despite being underage and performed in Battle of The Band competitions, but had never won any competitions.^[1]^[2]

The band made music in their basement and bedrooms by using cheap equipments.^[4] Their first album, D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L was being made in 1999-2000 and was completed in June 2000. The cover artwork is from a panel from the manga, Mint na Bokura, made by Wataru Yoshizumi from 1997-1999. Notably, The albums line notes only credits the band member's first names.^[5] The music has been described as emo, dream pop, shoegaze, etc.

Only 30 copies were roughly made and shared among friends, some being sent to labels and reviewers.^[4] Panchiko received only one response from label, Fierce Panda, quote:

"'Death Metal', of course, is anything but death metal. Hahaha!! Lovely sweet vocals, then some wiggy wiggy stuff. Needs a bit of va-va-va-voom on the vocals front. I really like this. It would make my ears stand on end if I heard it on the radio. 'Stabilizers For Big Boys' = great. Swearing + ranting in a very familiar style. 'Laputa' is lovely and slow. Bugger knows what they remind me of."

Even though the label had interest, they remained unsigned.

Between 2000 and 2001, Panchiko made three other songs for their EP, Kicking Cars, which remained unreleased.^[1] The band members were in college studying music and working different part-time jobs before being disbanded and went with their own lives.

Resurgence

On July 21st, 2016, an anonymous user found a copy of D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L at a charity shop and posted it on 4chan. The user shared an image of the CD on the /mu/ board and wanted assistance into uncovering more information on the band.^[6] Shortly after the post, multiple request from users asked for the user to upload an ripped copy of the album. The user complied and shared the track from the album.^[6] Though, the CD had disc rot, making the audio heavily corrupted and distorted.^[5]^[1] Many said that the album was a publicity stunt but the band already received an cult following without the band's knowledge.

Search Efforts

In 2017, D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L was further popularized when the rip was uploaded on YouTube, garnering 200,000 views and renewed interest in the band.^[5]^[7] It led to a dedicated search to find more information. On January 19th, 2020, users took note on the bar code of the cover which led them to an Oxfam shop in Sherwood, Nottingham, leading users to search for musicians under the first names from the cover. On January 21st, 2020, a user successfully found a Facebook profile of the lead singer of Panchiko, Davies, and contacted them. Davies didn't know about the resurgence of the album and contacted Wright and Ferreday, none knowing about the band's popularity. John, the original drummer was no longer in contact and his whereabouts is unknown.^[1]^[5]

Availability

Wright, after being contacted, tasked himself with recovering Panchiko's past works. Wright's restoration efforts struggled as he didn't have access to the master copies. However, a friend of Wrights came out that they possessed the original copy, with a slightly better condition and no disc rot. Wright using this copy, remastered all four tracks of the album and released it on February 16th, 2020 with tracks from Kicking Cars, rendering it found.