All week long, XLR8R is presenting its annual focus on Labels We Love. Click here to check out the rest of the series.

Although many labels have had an impact on the sound of 2013, there aren’t many imprints that have been more influential than PAN. Though the Berlin-based label has been releasing music since 2008, within the past year or two, its dark and unique blend of techno, industrial, noise, and various experimental sounds has solidified into a sort of template, albeit one that’s still incredibly difficult to define in any sort of concrete fashion. As with many of the best labels, it’s hard to describe exactly what a PAN record sounds like, but there’s undoubtedly a connective thread that holds all of its releases together. In hopes of examining that thread a little more closely, we’ve enlisted label founder Bill Kouligas to put together an exclusive mix consisting of nothing but PAN material, and have elected to debut it as part of our Labels We Love coverage.

Surveying the entire PAN catalog in the context of a single podcast would effectively be an impossible task, but Kouligas has nonetheless put together an accurate portrait of the label’s many sonic facets. Though the mix alternates between segments of dark, dubby grooves and raw, static-laden noise, it’s still a coherent statement, and one that demonstrates how established notions of genre are continually melting away within the current electronic landscape. Without question, there plenty of difficult and challenging moments, but the sounds—and, perhaps more importantly, the ways in which those sounds have been juxtaposed—are so compelling that both experimental diehards and dancefloor denizens will find something to latch on to. Furthermore, Kouligas has slipped in a handful of unreleased tunes, which seem to indicate that PAN’s current hot streak isn’t likely to slow down anytime soon.

01 Mark Leckey & Florian Hecker “Chimera” (PAN)
02 Dalglish “Ciaradh” (PAN)
03 Eli Keszler “Parking Generation II” (PAN)
04 Afrikan Sciences “Son Shine 1” (PAN)
05 Rashad Becker “Dances IV” (PAN)
06 Lee Gamble “Untitled” / Rene Hell “This Is Chess” (PAN)
07 Concrete Fence “Caulk” (PAN)
08 Beneath “Stress 1 WIP” (PAN)
09 NHK’Koyxen “675” (PAN)
10 M.E.S.H. “Ojai2” (PAN)
11 Jar Moff “Financial Glam” (PAN)
12 Ben Vida “Damaged Particulates IV” (PAN)
13 Rene Hell “Var_len” (PAN)
14 Mat Dryhurst “DISPATCH” (PAN)
15 Helm “Mirrored Palms” (PAN)
16 James Hoff “Blaster” (PAN)
17 Black Sites “Prototype” (PAN)
18 Lee Gamble “Untitled”
19 Valerio Tricoli “Miseri Lares” (PAN)
20 Marginal Consort “Instal – Live” (PAN)
21 Heatsick “Mimosa” (PAN)

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